


Worthy Of A Trilogy

by sksai



Series: Worthy Of A Crush Universe [3]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Grief, M/M, discussion of mental health and suicide, i promise fam, instances of depression and suicidal ideation, it's not a trick this times there's A LOT of pynch in this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 01:02:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 52,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15984260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sksai/pseuds/sksai
Summary: what's up guys i almost dropped out of school to finish this hope u like it !





	Worthy Of A Trilogy

**Author's Note:**

> IF YOU'RE NEW TO THE TERRORDOME THAT IS SKSAI FICS PLEASE READ: This story is the third part of a series, PLEASE read the two previous stories first or you will have no idea what is going on or care probably, unless you're into that sort of thing, in which case knock urself out. 
> 
> To the WOAC!universe vets: This story takes place inbetween the events of WOAC and WOAS, save for the epilogue, which takes place after both. 
> 
> Lastly, I would like to dedicate this to all the people from day ONE who asked for an entire novel about Peter, Whitt, and Donovan, to the anon who asked me "Does Peter Mirchandani have a boyfriend yet?", to everyone who supported this series at any point and for some reason decided to care about my slew of original characters, to my biggest cheerleader and test reader Georgia, and most of all, to my good friend Vanz, my co-conceptualizer for the original WOAC idea, can you believe our boys are all grown up? Landslide plays in the background. 
> 
> All that being said, this is the hardest I have worked on any piece of writing in my entire life. I have no idea how it's going to be received and I'm kind of like, hmm was this the worst decision I've ever made? who knows! who cares! *slams post button*

 Matthew liked Adam.

He liked him for a lot of reasons, and he had to remind himself of those reasons as he occupied the tiny room above St. Agnes church Adam used to call home.

He liked the way Adam was so good at knowing things without having to be told them. Especially since Matthew had a hard time explaining certain things, like why he needed to be sitting next to his brother when he was in a car, which didn't matter because Adam always moved from the front to the back or to another side to accommodate this, silently and knowingly without Matthew having to awkwardly bring it up.

He liked listening to him explain things, and that he knew so much about so much, it came in handy since Matthew always had a lot of questions, the kind that most people couldn't answer.

He liked how happy and smiley he made his brother, Ronan. Sometimes Matthew worried that he was the only person Ronan ever really relaxed around. It was nice to have that pressure taken off of him.

He liked Adam's smell. He always smelled like something after something else. Wood after being burned, the grass after a rainstorm, something indescribably pleasant like that.

He never would have imagined someone so smart and kind and good-smelling would have such a disaster of a living space. It was stressing him out, and making it hard for him to be helping, and he was supposed to be helping. If Ronan and Adam got back from dropping off what had already been purged from this place and there wasn't another sizable dent in the clutter, the mood would turn sour, ice cream for his effort would be out of the question. So he rifled through all his good feelings about Adam in hopes it would energize him to work beyond his current state of frazzled misery. He knelt down to dig out the mountains of papers shoved under Adam's bed and started sorting them according to how important they looked like they might be. He was nearly finished by the time his second biggest brother's signature angry-but-then-make-it-fashion stomp pounded up the stairs.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Matthew didn't bother turning around. He knew what his brother looked like so it wasn't high on his list of sights to see.

"Organizing all these papers," he told him patiently, though he felt it was obvious and went without saying.

"Jesus Christ," Ronan made a sound like an exasperated horse. "If you didn't wanna help you could have just said so."

Matthew turned to him then, scowling with indignation. "I am helping. I'm organizing this stuff so Adam can look through and figure out which ones are important and which ones he can throw away."

"Aw, Matthew," Adam's honey-slicked voice was welcome inside Matthew's now irritated ears. He brought his holiday candle smelling body down to the floor next to him and gave him a lingering pat on the back. "That's real thoughtful of you. But none of this junk is important. It's all trash."

"What?" Matthew couldn't believe this. He held up the stack he'd mentally dubbed Most Important. "Are you sure?"

"Positive," Adam's arm had slung surreptitiously from one shoulder to the other, cradling Matthew from one side in a strangely soothing gesture. "But thanks."

Matthew frowned from his eyebrows downward, slowly reaching for the largest sheet of paper of the bunch, which he'd had to put in its own section entirely. He held it up for Adam to assess. "What about this?"

Ronan snorted from above them. "You kept that thing? You fucking narcissist."

"Did you draw this?" Matthew asked, looking from Adam to the drawing and back again.

Adam finished rolling his eyes at Ronan before addressing Matthew. "No. Awhile back I sat for a portrait. The artist wanted me to have it, but I didn't think it was right to just take it, so I bought it off him."

"The artist!" Ronan scoffed with mocking delight.

Matthew studied the drawing with a fresh wave of curiosity. The figure on the white paper was made up of thick black lines, smudged together to make a person-shaped thing. It didn't look very much like Adam, Matthew thought, until he looked back at Adam again and wondered how he could have ever looked at this rendering and seen anything but the thick-lined boy in front of him. He turned back to the drawing and again, looked upon a stranger.

"Cool!" He exclaimed. "Can I have it?"

Adam chuckled musically, gave him another pat, and released him. "Sure, buddy."

Ronan complained some more and Adam made some noises at him that seemed to cool his temperament. He saw them move closer to each other from the corner of his eye and promptly tuned it all out and focused instead on how best to mobilize and transport his new possession to ensure it made it home with him safely. Eventually he had to settle for simply rolling it up and keeping it formed between his own two hands. He'd flatten it out under some heavy books later.

"I'm hungry," Matthew heard his brother complain in a whiny voice that only came out when he was slumped uselessly against Adam's body. "And tired." He dropped his r's like a child with a speech impediment.

"No one's keeping you here," Adam replied coldly, though his hands were rubbing contradictory circles of warm affection into the lower skin of Ronan's back.

"We'll finish tomorrow," Ronan suggested, still in that same horrible voice. He didn't know how Adam could stand it. He must have replied somehow in the affirmative because next Ronan was telling Matthew to get up and head back to the car.

"It's just temporary," Ronan said of Matthew's post-ice cream silence, he hadn't noticed until his brother's fingers were dusting across his cheek that he'd been crying. "Thanksgiving will be here before you know it."

Matthew sniffed, didn't bother responding. There wasn't anything else to say. The Christmas and Easter visits had gone by so fast and they hadn't made going back to DC any more bearable. Living with his oldest brother, Declan, was not fun. He was always busy, always in a mood. He was always telling Matthew to get out of the apartment they shared, go out and have some fun, but DC was not fun. DC was loud and messy and crowded and it made the insides of Matthew's ears itch. He closed his eyes, and breathed.

"Thanks for letting me have this," he told Adam, holding steadfastly onto the aforementioned gift as Adam hugged his body around him. "I hope you had a good birthday."

"Best one yet," Adam assured him. "See you soon, buddy."

"Are you really gonna make me walk over there by myself?" Matthew asked of his brother, still seated behind the wheel of his car.

Ronan didn't flinch. "Yeah?"

"Ronan!" Matthew whined, but regretted it as soon as his two older brothers locked eyes with each other. As he slid into the passenger seat of the dark blue Volvo, Declan muttered something about telling Adam happy birthday and Ronan gave him a lipless smile and pedestrian wave before closing the door gently and knocking on the window in goodbye. Ever since they'd stopped fighting with each other, they acted like this. Matthew almost preferred the fighting.

"Can't wait, can they?" Declan mused as he started the car. Matthew turned to see the far off image of Ronan pressing Adam up against the side of his car.

"Ugh," Matthew groaned. "They've been like that all day."

"Aw, well," Declan made a tsking sound. "Adam's leaving soon, I'm sure that's hard."

"Yep," Matthew leaned his head against the window, resigned to be uncomfortable for the entire drive back.

"It's nice, at least," Declan spoke slowly, carefully. "To see Ronan so happy."

"Uh-huh." Of everyone he knew, Declan was the worst at letting conversations die of natural causes.

"Are you happy?" Declan asked, not until a good 20 minutes into their drive.

"Not really", said Matthew, still with his head leaned into the window.

"Well," Declan was still speaking slowly like he was trying to tell a mystery story without having known the ending. "What can I do to make it better?"

The sky around them had gone from bright icepop blue to a murky indigo, which was Matthew's favorite. There were two times of day that managed to make the rest of the world slow to Matthew's internal pace, and this was one of them. The other was the crispy gray hours of early, early morning. Sometimes the only thing that got him through a bad night was the reminder of the utopic window of 4 to 6 am in which all would be still and peaceful inside his tumbledry brain.

"Matthew!" Declan said in a way that implied it wasn't the first time he'd said it.

Matthew flinched, turning toward his brother with a sleepy blink. "What?"

"Can you come back down to Earth and answer my question?"

Matthew's nose scrunched up inquisitively. "What question?"

Declan sighed, like a weathered king who knew his reign was soon to end and welcomed the relief of it. "What would make things better for you in DC?"

Matthew scoffed. "Nothing."

"Don't be like that," Declan's handsome face rippled with a hint of ugly. "You're spending too much time with Ronan."

"No I'm not," said Matthew. "It just is what it is."

Declan remained silent for the rest of the drive, thankfully. Long drives were unbearable when there was too much talking. Or Ronan's awful music. Matthew preferred silence, to let his mind dissolve into unrepentant fantasy, the slow and steady motion of the car moving forward unwinding his brain cells like a knotted cord. He could close his eyes and leave this world completely, exist somewhere else far away and untouchable by the slings and arrows of harsh reality.

Matthew had just settled back into his bed, happily running his fuzzy blanket through his fingers, the sensation soothing him in a way that made his bones feel like they fit nicely inside body, when Declan appeared in the doorway. Matthew didn't acknowledge his presence, half-aware that his standing there meant he wanted something from Matthew. In this way, he preferred his other brother. When Ronan had something to say, he said it. Declan always had to take his time, wind up to it. Even worse, he was so good at pretending to be unassuming, most of the time Matthew genuinely believed it.

"Where'd you get that?" Matthew turned to follow Declan's briefly extended finger.

"It was at Adam's apartment," Matthew answered, eyeing the portrait with regretful unease. He'd been antsy about putting it up and hadn't let it flatten out for a long enough time. It was curling inward at the edges. He'd have to take it down and fix it. "He said I could have it."

"Huh," Declan mused. That was what did it. The trigger word that alerted Matthew of oncoming discussion. He squeezed his eyes shut, steeling himself for whatever was coming next.

"I was thinking," said Declan. "We could leave first thing Sunday morning."

Matthew opened his eyes to blink them at his brother. "To go where?"

"Home."

Declan used to come home every Sunday for church. After the move, he'd decided it wasn't a good idea for them to travel back so often. Not safe.

So Matthew simply asked, "Why?"

"This isn't working," Declan crossed his arms, looking floorward. "I know you're not happy here. I've known for awhile. But you're safe here. I used to think that was more important."

Matthew rolled over onto his side, feeling extremely uncomfortable. As much as Declan's evasiveness bewildered him, in some other way it was almost as if he could predict what was coming next.

"I don't want to make the same mistakes with you I did with Ronan," Declan was looking at his face now, so Matthew looked back. Declan looked so much like their father it unnerved him. It was comforting in all the ways it was infuriating.

"Ronan," Declan went on, "is an adult now. He can take care of himself. He can take care of you."

"Alright," said Matthew, emptily acquiescent.

Declan actually had the nerve to see through it. "Isn't that what you want?"

Matthew's insides squirmed. His bones did not fit comfortably inside him anymore. He didn't know how to explain to his brother how as much as he did not like it here, he didn't very much want to pack up and move back home, either.

"Matthew?" Declan prompted, which must have meant an immense amount of silence had passed.

"I don't know," Matthew said. He was looking up at the ceiling now. "All my stuff's here."

"Well, we'd move it back," Declan replied, sensibly confused.

Another long stretch of silence passed. Matthew knew he was supposed to say something but he just didn't know what it was he was supposed to say. As if he'd somehow just tapped into some previously unearthed pocket of understanding, Declan finally said,

"You're going back, you'll stay with Ronan at the Barns and start back up at Aglionby in the Fall. As your legal guardian, that's my final decision."

Having been told all this as if it were a goof-proof plan Matthew could follow, uprooting himself for the second time in less than a year seemed substantially less bone-grinding than it had a few minutes ago.

"Okay," he said, and managed to give his brother a small smile. "Thank you."

Declan was visibly pleased by this response, which made Matthew warm up inside. Energized with accomplishment, he set to packing up his room as soon as his brother left it. The last thing left on the wall was Adam's portrait. He tilted his head, only taking a moment to decide it needed to be left alone for the night, he needed to have something up there or he wouldn't be able to sleep, to survive the rest of the week until Sunday came around. Now that he knew he was going to be leaving this place, it was nearly impossible to feel comfortable in it. His only solace was the soft fuzzy scratch of his blanket and the grimy, chalky feeling of the portrait on the wall. It had been made with something that still smudged when he touched it. Not wanting to ruin the actual art, he restrained himself to only the large signature in the corner. He'd lay in his bed with his right arm stretched up, blindly climbing the wall until his fingers grazed the familiar texture, now indented from his nightly ministrations, and rubbed his fingertips raw, until his eyes got too heavy to hold open, the letters in his head lulling him to sleep.

_P M, P M, P M, P M, P M._

*** * ***

It was like he'd stepped into another world. One that looked strikingly similar to the one he'd grown up in, but somehow completely foreign. It was like one of those picture games in magazines of two images that looked identical but when you looked closely there were actually a million little things different about them. He tried to pass the time by cataloging every difference he could find, but the game was much less fun in real life. It sort of just made him sad.

"Where's Opal?" He eventually had to ask, though he'd been avoiding it because he was afraid of the answer.

"I had to put her back," Ronan answered, mid hay-bail.

"Put her back?" Matthew repeated, a note of alarm caught in his voice. "Put her back where?"

His brother wiped a gloved hand across his sweaty brow. "Where she came from."

"Why?"

"She needed to go back," said Ronan, turning away. "She didn't belong here."

Matthew stood there in the tall, itchy grass, his ankles being eaten alive. He was thinking about Opal. How wild and disruptive and unhappy she was. Ronan was always stressed out about it. He didn't know what to do with her. He said the psychic ladies told him she was like a square peg that had somehow been shoved through a round hole. Once, Matthew had been trying to download a book for school he was too lazy to go find in person. He couldn't get the PDF to open on his phone so he ran it through some conversion software to change the file type so it would work. It opened after that, but it was all messed up. Letters spaced out improperly inside words, numbers and symbols piled on top of sentences that cut off into entirely blank pages. He spent hours and hours and hours trying to fix it, spent enough money on various programs to make Declan send him a strongly worded text message about using his card. He couldn't let it go. He could have very easily just opened the original file on his computer and called it a day, but it bothered him that a thing that was totally normal and fine couldn't just be normal and fine somewhere else. That was the problem with Opal. She had been made to open in Ronan's dreams, but out here in the real world she was full of gibberish and blank pages. It was hard for normal people to read her. He wondered if it hurt her, existing out here, haphazardly converted to open somewhere she shouldn't be able to, as much as it hurt him.

*** * ***

**stop fucking ignoring me**

_My roommate is here, I can't do FaceTime._

**tell him to leave**

_Ronan._

**i cant sext you and hold my phone and jack off at the same time it's impossible**

_Get a pop socket._

Ronan rolled over in bed and pouted, feeling supremely spurned by his unsympathetic boyfriend.

_Are you pouting?_

**fuck you**

_Baby._

Adam meant it as an insult, but it was unsuccessful at doing anything other than turning him on. So Ronan sent him a photo of himself sporting the alleged pout, complete with a SnapChat filter that made his eyes huge and his cheeks cartoonishly pink, drawn over with stick whiskers.

_kfgljhfkglhkflghadjkgdgfg_

_omgf fgfgdgf_

**:(**

**why don't u accept me**

_I do, I'm frighteningly into it actually_

_I've never seen you look so soft and squishy_

_I wanna squeeze you_

_I hope you still have the beard when I come home to visit_

**why**

_You know._

**hmmmm no?**

_Because I want to feel it between my legs._

Ronan hated how casually, devastatingly sexy Adam could be at the drop of a hat. So he just wrote back,

**oh okay**

_:p_

_Hey_

_My roommate left_

Even though he was the one who called him, and he had seen Adam on an almost daily basis throughout the past two years of his life, the vision of his shirtless form lighting up his phone screen shocked his heart like an unfamiliar and welcome surprise. His skin was still especially spotted with extra summer freckles that Ronan wanted to bottle up and keep.

"Hey you," Adam's voice was raspy from lack of sleep, which should have bothered Ronan in a concerned boyfriend way, but he was too busy being horribly selfish and just found it nerve-tinglingly hot. He slumped back-flat against his bed and frowned.

"This was a bad idea."

Adam chuckled, low and cheerless. "Told you. It just makes it worse."

Adam leaving for college had been treated like an open secret as soon as the two of them had started dating. Their friends didn't bring it up and they didn't really talk about it, either. It was going to be hard, Ronan knew that, he'd accepted it, but he didn't want to have to think about it until the time was upon him. But as sacrilegious as it felt to admit to himself, by the time summer had come to a close, Ronan was a little bit sick of his boyfriend. This wasn't because there was anything unpleasant going on, it was just that having Adam Parrish for a boyfriend was like eating nothing but chocolate cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And so he thought he would be grateful for the space, the quiet, after Adam went away to school. It wouldn't be so hard, after all. It might actually be nice. Now, it was barely October and every day without him was a cruel punishment. He fucking ached, starved. Having him on a screen, a mockery of closeness, was somehow more painful than no contact at all. Still, they had to make do and time was of the essence, so Ronan quickly slipped his hand down the front of his sweatpants. "Are you gonna show me your dick or what?"

The FaceTime sex was going exceptionally well, despite Ronan's lack of PopSocket. The only problem was that Declan kept texting him and the very unsexy notifications were throwing him off his rhythm.

"What's wrong, baby?" Adam's voice was breathy and his eyes were slitted half closed, the very picture of Ronan's dirtiest fantasies. He groaned in annoyance.

"Declan keeps fucking texting me right as I'm about to come."

"Well," Adam's eyes snapped open and he promptly removed his hand from between his legs like he'd been burned, "After that sentence, there's no way I'm going to be able to."

"God fucking damn it," Ronan cursed, swiping to minimize the FaceTime screen and open the gathering storm of notifications from his brother.

He scrolled quickly past the "call me"s and the "Ronan answer your fucking phone"s and barely had the brain capacity to stop at  _GET TO THE SCHOOL NOW. MATTHEW IS IN TROUBLE._

"Fuck," he hissed, his heart stopping and restarting at a dangerous speed in his chest. "I have to go."

"Are you serious?" Adam had propped himself up indignantly on one forearm. His cheeks flushed and nostrils flared, he looked like the cutest pissed off horse Ronan had ever seen. "This was your idea and now you're blueballing me?"

"I'm sorry," Ronan winced at the screen, hovering over the end call button. "It's Matthew. Something happened at school."

"Oh," Adam's face crinkled in concern. "Is he okay?"

"I don't know," Ronan was walking and talking. "Declan's freaking out and telling me I have to go pick him up so probably not."

"Maybe he just got sick in class or something," Adam mused, fully traversed into soothing mode.

"Yeah," Ronan agreed distantly as he climbed into the driver's seat of the new car he still wasn't used to. A small part of him regretted giving Adam the BMW to take with him to school, because he missed it like an amputated limb. But it was a necessary sacrifice, he needed Adam to have it, a part of him, with him while he was away. "Maybe."

"Keep me posted," Adam said as Ronan started the deafeningly quiet engine. "And don't forget you owe me an orgasm."

When Ronan dropped out of school late last year, he'd been so blissfully certain he'd never have to experience the miserable muscle memory of pulling into the Aglionby parking lot ever again. He did his best to squash down the traumatic memories that were pulsing at the back of his head like a tension migraine and unfortunately still remembered how to get to the nurse's office.

As a card-carrying pessimist, he wanted to be prepared for the worst. As a lifelong relative of Declan Lynch, he wanted to assume the dramatics were unwarranted. When he finally made it to his destination, his warring mental logistics sputtered to a halt entirely. A smattering of boys lined the sticky plastic seats ringing the walls of the tiny office, all varying degrees of swollen, cut-up and pulpy. They slumped in their seats like sour soldiers disillusioned from a losing battle. His eyes scanned frantically, trying to recognize his brother among the wounded, his eyes stopping briefly on the broadly cut figure of a black boy he thought he might have recognized. Pollocky ribbons of red stained his pressed white shirt. He sat with his back straight, his handsome features unmarred unlike those surrounding. One arm was slung around the back of the chair next to him, strangely protective, behind the boy sat inside it, who he had no troubling recognizing at all. He eyed his brother wildly, trying to catalog the injuries and gauge their severity, but Matthew's face was stark white and mockingly clean in contrast to the human wreckage that surrounded him. He stared down at the floor, or maybe at his fists that were clenched in his lap. It was there this abstract painting's focal point became clear to Ronan. The only placed Matthew had blood was on his hands.

*** * ***

Donovan Yates had already been having a bad day.

He'd been pulled over outside the Dunkin Donuts, a mere three blocks from school, for a reason that was still a little bit unclear beyond the Henrietta police force routine public humiliation services. He'd tried not to focus on the swarm of students gawking as he was asked to step out of his vehicle. He tried not to imagine what they were thinking as they sipped their iced coffees, what they were no doubt whispering to each other and how the information would be passed around like a hot potato. He even tried to pretend this wasn't what it was. That the cops around here just hassled everyone and he was not alone in being subjected to their unjust bullying. He knew the drill well enough by now, keep your hands down in front of you, call him sir, answer every question with a polite, understanding smile. Officer Friendly decided to let him off with "a warning" and Donovan had to force himself not to scoff, to say thank you, to be  _grateful_. He closed his eyes as he restarted his engine and by the time he got to Peter's house he was in no mood for talking, which Peter gloriously understood, and slid into the backseat without a word. Of course the same could not be said for Donovan's next passenger, who predictably did not thank him for the donuts and coffee run that had shaved a few more years off Donovan's life expectancy.

"What's the matter with you?" He grunted, instead. As if Donovan's mood displeased him.

Donovan closed his eyes again. He rifled through every possible outcome that could result from having this conversation right now and decided he didn't much care for any of them.

"Bad day," he answered, pulling out of the Whittaker driveway.

"How is that possible," Whitt ignorantly wanted to know, "when the day hasn't even started yet?"

And Donovan really wanted to hate him in that moment, which wasn't fair, or maybe it was. It certainly wasn't fair the way God had decided to arrange Thomas Whittaker's stupid gap-toothed smile that beamed at him, blissfully unaware, offering him one of the donut holes he'd just risked his life purchasing for him.

"Feel better?" Whitt asked impishly.

"You cured me," Donovan announced with deadpan sarcasm.

Whitt scrunched up his face in annoyance. "Asshole."

Behind them, Peter smirked.

Donovan sighed. Whitt was right about one thing. The day hadn't even started and already he was ready for it to be over. At least they'd be at school soon and for the next eight hours his brain would be dutifully distracted with tediously translating latin phrases and solving absolutely pointless equations. He could process and comparmentalize all his tangled up emotions at his leisure, the robotic monotony of the Aglionby hallways a perfect location to clear his cluttered mind.

His plan had even been working until the long passing period between fifth and sixth period when the quiet, shuffling, monotonous halls of Aglionby had turned into a raucous episode of WWE Smackdown.

"What the fuck?" Whitt exclaimed, someone on his other side shoving him into Donovan's shoulder. Donovan stepped forward and pivoted, blocking Whitt from any further damage. He tried to make sense of the chaos in front of him, people were screaming the typical encouraging words, "Get him!" "Fuck him up!", and the ever popular, "Fight fight fight fight fight!" There was a boy lying prone on the ground and the compassionate startle of his heart slowed to a halt as soon as he recognized the limp body as Andrew Jensen.

Peter materialized at his right side, like he was wont to do in times of distress. "What's going on?"

"From what I can gather," Donovan told him, "Jensen was messing with Lynch, saying something about his family, and he just fucking laid him out, so Jensen's boys jumped in and he's taking them all on now."

"Jesus Christ," Peter muttered with heavy solemnity to his voice, as if this was something he had to deal with personally. He shoved past the buoying crowd and inserted himself inbetween Matthew Lynch and Jensen's lackeys.

"That's enough," He spoke authoritatively. "Three against one, really? Come on guys, that's just—"

Matthew Lynch had been spinning around, rearing back his fist with the impossible force of an anime protagonist and unfortunately Peter's jaw had just happened to step right into the arc of that. Peter flew forward, face-first into a row of lockers, and slumped to the ground.

"He's crazy!" Someone shouted.

"Just like his faggot brother," Georgie Hayworth, Jensen's right hand sneered through his bloodied lips.

Donovan's reflexes were quick, because his body had reacted to Peter hitting the lockers more quickly than his brain had been able to process it. He was, unfortunately, going to have to save Georgie Hayworth's life, because if he hadn't gotten ahold of Matthew Lynch before he reached him, there was no doubt in his mind it would have ended in Lynch serving life in prison for murder. And no one deserved to go to prison for killing Georgie Hayworth.

Lynch was built like a brick shithouse, but Donovan was much taller and had the element of surprise on his side. He grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around, pinning him to the floor in one swift movement.

"He's not worth it," Donovan hissed, "Just let it go, man."

Donovan had been expecting a struggle, but Matthew Lynch went surprisingly still underneath him, like a prey animal caught in a trap.

Teachers had arrived by that point, everyone was being screamed at to break it up, get to class, Jensen was picked up off the floor and his wounded cronies were taken away. Whitt sat in front of the lockers, cradling Peter to his chest, puffed out defiantly like he was a valiant protector and couldn't be blown over by a strong gust of wind. Nurse Kelly and Mr. Warwick were helping the boys to their feet.

"I'm fine," Peter insisted through flickering eyelids. He took his hand away from where it was pressed against his forehead and bright red blood spilled down the right side of his face, covering it like warpaint.

"Don't!" Nurse Kelly screeched at Warwick and Whitt, stopping them from whatever not trained in head wounds thing they were about to do. Donovan should have rushed over, held Peter's other side, encasing him safely between his two best friends.

Instead, he stayed put, his knee pressed into Matthew Lynch's back, feeling every long, laborious breath he was taking. He'd never really paid much attention to Matthew Lynch. The older Lynch brothers were much more interesting. Declan was one of the school's favorite success stories and was steadfastly hero worshipped by the future polisci majors. Ronan was an entertaining windmill of gossip the whole school eagerly participated in. From his shaved head to his back tattoo to his dedication of breaking every school rule possible, he seemed to be making himself into an everyday talking point on purpose, it almost seemed like he wanted the whole world to be talking about him. Matthew, on the other hand, was…well, Donovan didn't really know. He used to hang out with the Freemont twins and their J Crew crew. Whitt had been invited to one of their boat parties, once. But since Donovan and Peter had not, Whitt had politely declined the offer. There was some chatter about Matthew when he left school for awhile after his mom apparently passed away. Both the Lynch parents were dead now. And people talked about it like it was some episode of a TV show. It was no wonder what had gone down in the hallway today, no telling how long Matthew Lynch had been taking all that hurt and anger and people talking about you and staring at you like you were a carnival attraction and just stuffing down deep into every nook and cranny in yourself you could find. You were bound to eventually run out of room.

And now he was going to be in serious trouble, which kind of sucked. Jensen and his dumbass friends deserved it and Peter's injuries were his own damn fault. He just had to hurl himself into the fray like a peacekeeping hero and now that pretty face of his was probably going to be scarred for life.

"Let's go, boys." Mr. Warwick was standing over Donovan and Matthew now. Peter was one of his favorites so it was clear in the disapproving frown he was directing at Matthew he'd taken a side. Donovan felt strangely defensive. So, he started talking.

"Jensen and his friends started this. Matthew was just trying to defend himself. It was three against one. Peter stepped in to try to break up the fight and Matthew hit him on accident. I saw it all happen."

"Save it for the judge," Mr. Warwick joked at him, motioning for Donovan to stand. Whitt and Peter and Nurse Kelly had disappeared. He'd heard something about an ambulance on the way. He supposed they'd gone to find that.

Mistaking his deducing for worry, Mr. Warwick said, "Why don't you go catch up with your friends, Mr. Yates? Nurse Kelly is escorting them to the gym entrance to wait for an ambulance."

"Up, Lynch," he commanded at Matthew, as if addressing a dog. Matthew didn't move. Mr. Warwick kicked at the side of his body. Donovan's blood curdled. He stooped down to clasp one hand around Matthew's elbow and help him up off the floor.

"Wherever he's going," Donovan told Mr. Warwick. "I'm going."

Matthew didn't react to this, just stayed looking straight ahead, at dead air.

"Take an out when you see one, Mr. Yates. Anyone involved in this fight is going to have a mark put in their record, at the very least. Suspension and expulsion aren't out of the question."

"That sucks for Peter," Donovan met his challenge head on. "But maybe since I'm going to tell the whole story, Headmaster Child will go easy on him."

Mr. Warwick sighed, his face pulling into an exaggerated muppet-like frown. "Very well. Follow me, boys."

*** * ***

The last time Donovan had seen Ronan Lynch, he'd been spying on him and his boyfriend making out from behind some bushes. This had not been a purposeful choice on Donovan's part, it was simply something he had once been subjected to. The time before that, he'd been pulling an embarrassingly drunk Whitt away from him at Carruthers' party. It seemed only fitting for his next encounter to be staring him down as he barged into the nurse's offices where he, Matthew, and the rest of the vile beginners of this fray had been instructed to wait.

Ronan held Donovan's gaze questioningly, for a moment, then his eyes landed on what they were looking for.

"Well look what the cat dragged in," Mr. Warwick boomed in mocking delight. "Ronan Lynch, the prodigal son, returns."

"I'm here for my brother," Ronan grunted, eyes skittering like he didn't know quite where to fix them.

"I assumed as much." Mr. Warwick rose to stand, motioning for Ronan to step through the connecting hallway between the nurse's office and the main office, where Headmaster Child was waiting for them. "Boys, come along."

Donovan and Matthew stood in tandem, like two prisoners shackled together by their feet.

"Who're you?" Ronan directed at him through slitted eyes.

"The witness," Donovan answered primly. "So your brother doesn't get expelled."

Ronan seemed completely bewildered by this and simply turned around and kept walking.

He gave Headmaster Child his spiel, adding his own dramatic twist on certain things to skew the situation more in Matthew's favor. He said Jensen and his friends had been bullying him, that they struck first, and Matthew was defending himself.

"Quite a different version of events than what I heard from Mr. Hayworth."

"Doesn't this school have a no tolerance policy against hate-speech?" Donovan asked with faux curiosity. "Everyone heard was Georgie was saying to Matthew, you don't have to take my word for it."

"Mr. Hayworth has been properly punished for his apparent role in this," Child assured him blandly. "There's no way to prove who drew first blood and frankly, I don't care. This isn't the way Aglionby boys behave and it will not go unpunished for any of the parties involved."

"If Mr. Lynch was being bullied and threatened he should have notified a teacher or staff member so it could have been dealt with properly. No student has the right to lay hands on another student in these halls. I've got two boys in the hospital over Matthew's little outburst, and their angry parents burning up my phone. I've no choice but to not allow Matthew to come back to school—"

"That's not fair!" Donovan blurted out, with way too much fervor on the behalf of someone he didn't even know. He belatedly realized he may have been projecting his own pent up frustration into Matthew's predicament, but he was in too deep to back down now. "I told you, Hayworth and Turner and Jefferson were all coming at Matthew at once. Peter ran in the middle of the fight like an idiot and Matthew hit him on accident."

Matthew looked up from where he sat, addressing Donovan for the first time ever. "Who's Peter?"

"The boy you Chuck Norris'd into the lockers," Donovan reminded him, shaking his head, unnerved by the distraction. "But that was Peter's own fault, he shouldn't have gotten involved."

"If you'd let me finish," Child said. "Matthew will not be allowed to return to school until he's completed a week-long anger management class, followed by a mental health assessment."

"You've gotta be shitting me," Ronan spoke up for the first time they'd all been led to the office.

"Oh, Ronan," Child sighed. "How I've missed your dazzling way with words. But alas, no, I am not. It's standard protocol for violent students."

"Matthew isn't violent," Ronan spat. Matthew had returned to staring blankly at nothing.

"Tell that to the blood that's being mopped up off my hallway," Child snorted. "Get your brother to class and have his certificate of completion and mental health paperwork on my desk by next Tuesday."

"You're dismissed, Mr. Lynch." Child added when no one spoke, then chuckled to himself. "Both of you."

The Lynch brothers left without another word, though Ronan did throw Donovan one last curious, possibly interested look before extracting his catatonic brother from view.

"Mr. Yates," Child addressed him now. "You've painted such a vivid picture for me, and not one so favorable toward your bosom buddy. You and Mr. Mirchandani on the outs?"

Donovan used all that was left of his strength not to roll his eyes. "Of course not, sir. I just saw what happened and was worried Matthew would get wrongly blamed for the whole fight."

"Oh?" Child didn't seem convinced. "Why so passionate about the fate of Matthew Lynch?"

Donovan shrugged, a polite smile plastered on his face. He could feel the premature wrinkles forming. "Must be the future lawyer in me."

Headmaster Child laughed heartily at that. He stood and Donovan copied his action. "Let's hope you get there, Mr. Yates. Staying out of any future hallway brawls seems like a good start."

"Yes, sir." Donovan answered robotically, steeling himself against the unwelcome clap on his back and nudge out the door.

"Am I not being punished?" he asked, as Child was already shutting the door in his face.

Child sighed. "I've exhausted all my punishments for the day," he told Donovan with a thin lipped smile. "This time I'll just have to let you off with a warning."

*** * ***

"Who was that kid?" Ronan asked as soon as they were out of the Aglionby parking lot.

"What kid?" Matthew asked, eyes closed, forehead pressed against the glass of the window beside him.

"Your bulldog defense attorney," Ronan scoffed. "I thought he was about to start fistfighting Child over your honor."

"I don't know him," Matthew said. "He stopped the fight. Pinned me down."

Ronan was at a loss. For words, for anything. He had no idea what he was supposed to do now.

"Your hands look like shit," he remarked, distracted by their bloodied and swollen appearance. A sight he'd never thought he'd associate with his docile baby brother.

"I think my thumb's broken."

"You forget how to throw a punch?"

Matthew didn't respond.

"Well, was it true?" Ronan forced himself to ask. "What your knight in shining armor was saying back there?"

The car sped over a bump and Matthew's body jostled. "I wasn't paying attention."

"He said they were bullying you. Something about hate-speech?"

"They were talking shit," Matthew said evasively, and Ronan felt like he was going to explode, until Matthew added, "About you. And Adam."

That cut the heat in Ronan's blood. "What were they saying?"

"Gross stuff."

"Like what?"

"You don't want to know."

"I can assure you that I do."

"Well I'm not repeating it!" Matthew growled from where he'd curled himself into the window. "Can you just leave me alone?"

"Apparently not," Ronan replied, shaken by his brother's disturbing behavior. He'd never heard Matthew speak that way. He couldn't even imagine Matthew stepping on a bug and he'd put two kids in the fucking hospital? His brain was still trying to wrap itself around that. "I gotta take you to these fucking dumbass classes," Ronan reminded him, gesturing to the paperwork the office secretary had handed him as they left. "And get your head examined because you went full psycho on some stupid homophobic bullies. I thought you knew better than that."

"I'm not doing that," Matthew told him flatly. "The classes."

"You have to or you can't go back to school."

"I don't want to go back to school."

Ronan nearly choked on his own breath. "You want Declan to drag you back to DC? You're damn lucky I'm the one whose dealing with you right now or you'd already be gone."

Matthew did not respond with words, but lifted his head back from the window it had been laid against, then dropped it forward with a vibrating smack. He pulled back and did it again, and again, and again, and Ronan nearly swerved into oncoming traffic trying to pull him upright.

"What the hell has gotten into you?" He gripped his brother by the front of his shirt, searching his big doe eyes for something he could understand. They were blown and blank and emotionless. He was looking at someone he didn't recognize.

"Don't touch me," Matthew hissed, wrenching out of his grasp and curling forward into a ball.

Ronan shook his head and averted his attention back to the road in front of him. He tried again for humor, something to lighten the mood. "Wish I knew you what a little shit you were gonna turn out to be before I brought you into his world."

"Oh yeah?" Matthew lifted his head up at that. "Why don't you just put me back? Like you did with Opal. Like you did with mom."

Ronan's blood went from uncomfortably chilled to freezing cold. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"If you hadn't taken her to that place, she wouldn't be dead."

This wasn't anything Ronan did not already know, it was just that it was the sort of thing he would have expected to come from the mouth of his older brother and hearing the damning truth in Matthew's sweetcream voice was the sourest poison he could have possibly swallowed. Matthew had been born out of childish human need to have a brother he could love who loved him back just as much. Matthew was everything he and Declan could never be. Sunny and pure, untouched by the darkness that flowed through their father's bloodline. What had happened to the sweet boy who leaned his head on Ronan's shoulder, falling asleep during Mass, who still reached for his hand when crossing a busy street, who called him pal?

When Ronan found it in him to speak, it wasn't until they were pulled into the dirt driveway he'd carved out in front of The Barns.

"That was different," his voice chafed like rocks in his throat. "With Opal. She didn't feel happy here. She wanted to go back."

"Whatever," Matthew replied, stepping out of the car and stomping toward the front door of their home, letting the screen door hang open behind him.

Ronan reached for his phone, ruined from some immediate reflex that had spored inside him ever since he'd laid his stupid eyes on Adam Parrish, that he needed to tell him what happened, that Adam would know what exactly what to say to make Ronan feel better. As soon as he heard Adam's sleepy voice on the other end of the line, though, he knew this wouldn't be possible. Adam had his own shit to worry about. The last thing Ronan wanted to be was another stressor in his life.

"Did I wake you?" Ronan's heart crusted over in ice.

"Mmh," Adam mumbled, "I was taking a nap."

"Oh," Ronan felt like he'd forgotten how to speak. "Sorry. Go back to sleep."

"I'm awake now," Adam scoffed, unaware of Ronan's internal trauma. "Is Matthew okay?"

"He'll be fine," Ronan said, sidestepping around the truth with easy, lifelong practice.

"Okay," Adam said, warily, anticipating Ronan's explanation for the reason he'd called.

"Are _you_ okay?" Adam finally asked of Ronan's deafening silence.

Ronan did not know how to answer this question, truthfully or otherwise. He said, "I should get off here. Just wanted to let you know everything was okay."

Adam was silent for a few painfully tense beats. "Ronan."

"Yeah?"

There was another crackling of silence, like Ronan could hear Adam reading between the lines of Ronan's non-answers, figuring out what to say next the same way he approached a difficult math equation.

"Don't go," he said. "Talk to me."

"I don't have anything to talk about."

"Well then make something up." Adam replied, his voice sticky and slow like syrup. "I miss your voice."

"You should sleep," Ronan mumbled, heat flooding the back of his neck, spilling into his cheeks. "You were up all night last night like an idiot."

"Talk me to sleep, then." Adam decided, as Ronan had predicted, knowing just what to say to make Ronan feel like he could hold himself together for another day. "So I'll have sweet dreams."

When Ronan entered the house, a good 45 minutes later, he was somehow surprised by the state he found it in. He'd expected Matthew to have blown through rooms like a hurricane, knocking over everything in his path. But there was no sign of Matthew's presence at all, save for the fact that Ronan had seen his bedroom lights on through the upstairs window before stepping inside. He was different from his brothers in this way, Ronan realized. When they exploded they did it externally, destroying anything and everything in their direct line of sight. He remembered the way Matthew had curled into himself, knocking his head against the window, seizing at the idea of being touched. Whatever bombs were going off, he kept them inside.

Ronan thought of Adam again, the way he quietly endured things, simmered his anger through some strange internal alchemical process Ronan would never understand until it evaporated into nothing. If he were here, maybe Matthew would talk to him, tell  _him_  what had crawled up his ass and died. Ronan was still trying to shake the lingering feelings of shock and dread the day's events had left him with when he'd finished up the farm work and forced himself into a hot shower, jittery and unable to clear his mind. He tried to be like Adam, to take control of his emotions, process them quietly and tuck them away into neat little boxes inside himself where they wouldn't get lost or ripped to shreds by the wild animal that was his brain. It was no use. He tossed and turned in bed, wrecked with anxiety over what he was supposed to do, how he was supposed to fix whatever had become broken between himself and his little brother without him realizing it. He had to tell Declan, he couldn't tell Declan. Part of the agreement they'd made when Declan had showed up announced with Matthew and all his things in tow was that he had to stay in school, he had to be in a stable, healthy environment, or Declan would "find another arrangement" which was most likely code for shipping him off to boarding school in Siberia. Ronan had to be able to handle this. He had to be able to take care of Matthew. He'd created him, after all. It only made sense for him to be the one responsible for him. It should be easy, he thought with brow furrowing frustration. He and Matthew weren't just brothers, they were connected in a way no one else in Ronan's life could ever be connected to him. Matthew was a part of him, he'd come from inside of him, he was his. His instincts were telling him to leave him alone for the night, let him cool off. Ronan hated being pushed and prodded when he was already teetering off-balance. Maybe Matthew just needed some alone time to calm himself down and things would be normal in the morning.

Of course it wasn't until Ronan's overfried brain had finally given way to sleep when his bedroom door cracked open, jolting Ronan into awareness. Matthew winced, unused to Ronan's trauma-induced reflexes. Adam had learned how to pad silently on socked feet, maneuvering out of bed like a ninja to get to his early shifts without waking Ronan. The same couldn't be said for his bear-shaped little brother, who stomped into the room like a giant toddler, demanding Ronan's sleep-deprived attention.

"I had a bad dream," Matthew announced. As Ronan's eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, he could make out the faint shine of tear tracks streaked down Matthew's face. Ronan pulled back his blankets, welcoming his brother into bed with him, as if neither of them had ever said anything mean to each other and nothing cataclysmic had happened earlier at all.

Ronan wrapped himself around Matthew eagerly, ready to comfort him, hold him, make him feel safe.

"Don't," Matthew whined, rolling away to the opposite side of the bed and Ronan's lungs felt like they'd halved in size.

"So you're still mad at me but you want me to protect you from the boogeyman?" Ronan snorted, trying to hide his upset.

"I'm not mad at you," Matthew told him. "You're mad at me."

Ronan was dumbfounded by this accusation. He replayed the events from picking Matthew up at school to Matthew angrily exiting his vehicle, over and over, trying and failing to understand how Matthew could have possibly come up with that conclusion.

"I'm not mad at you," Ronan spoke into the darkness. "I just wanted you to talk to me, tell me what happened."

"I told you what happened."

Jesus fucking Christ. This was like talking to a brick wall who talked back.

"Well," Ronan said after a long while, trying again to channel Adam, to choose his words carefully. "I'm not mad at you. I was just worried about you."

"You said you wished you'd never made me," Matthew reminded him.

"It was a joke," Ronan scoffed. "I thought it'd make you laugh."

"It didn't."

"Yeah, I got that." He did not choose to remind Matthew of what he'd said to Ronan. Instead he said, "I'm sorry. You know us being together is all I want. And if you want to stay here at The Barns with me, you have to do what the school says, and then you have to go back."

"To school," Ronan added, at Matthew's silence.

"Okay?"

"Okay," Matthew finally responded, voice muffled half into a pillow.

Ronan closed his eyes, took a deep breath in. He could do this. He could take care of Matthew. Declan wouldn't find out about this, at least not until Matthew was back in school and there was nothing he could do about it. Everything would be alright in the morning.

"What was your bad dream about?" He tentatively asked, suddenly remembering Matthew's reason for coming to him in the first place. He waited for an answer, before realizing the breaths going in and out of Matthew's body were deep and even, he'd already fallen asleep.

*** * ***

"I can't believe they're letting Lynch come back to school," Whitt sucked on his teeth. "Declan must have finally sent Child the nudes he's always wanted."

"That's not funny," Donovan snapped at him. "You know their mom just died, right?"

"Chill," Whitt snorted at him. "It was just a joke. I didn't say anything about their mom, Jesus."

"That's not the point. Everyone around here acts like the Lynches are a fucking reality TV show or something. It's gross."

"Since when do you care?" Whitt shot at him, suspicious.

"Stop," Peter commanded gently, his right hand going up instinctively to cover his still-swollen eye. "You guys are giving me a headache."

His best friends adjusted themselves sheepishly at the foot of his bed. He couldn't recall the events that had led up to his injury with precise detail, but vividly remembered waking up in a hospital room, Whitt sweating buckets trying to answer his mother's rapid fire questioning. He'd wondered why Donovan would have left Whitt alone to defend himself against Mr. and Mrs. Mirchandani, before realizing that Donovan was not there. He'd shown up at his house, late in the evening, to catch him up to speed about what had transpired after his elimination from the scene. He was oddly keyed up about it, Peter was too exhausted and in too much pain to ask why. Now he was snapping at Whitt for being his ordinary self. Peter didn't understand what had endeared him to his inadvertent assailant so quickly, but it unnerved him as much as he could bother to be unnerved in his current state. He had a ghastly row of stitches itching above his blackened right eye and a crudely healing gash cutting horribly down the rest of his face. The pain medicine helped, but he wasn't allowed to take it as often as he would have liked. He tried not to think about the permanent effects this disastrous encounter would have on his appearance, but it was hard not to, given that he'd currently been shut up in his room looking like Frankenstein's monster the past week with little signs of significant improvement.

"It always gets worse before it gets better," his mother had assured him, catching him stare resentfully at himself in the mirror one night. Peter hoped she was right, but he was also slowly but surely mentally preparing himself to spend the rest of his life looking like an extra in a pirate movie.

"Are you sure you don't want us to stay?" Whitt asked.

"I'm sure that would only make things a million percent more awkward," Peter told him. "And I'm really trying to keep awkwardness to a minimum, here."

"We should go," Donovan decided, as he usually did, for the both of them. He stood from where he'd been sat on Peter's bed and Whitt predictably followed. "Good luck." He waved at Peter in goodbye.

He heard Whitt muttering something insulting at him as they left, closing his bedroom door much too loudly. Even wincing in pain, he couldn't help but be fond. He wished Donovan would go easier on him, but he hadn't seen how he'd been so shaken up that day. Whitt had never seen Peter in any position but a dominant, leading one. Peter was the one who reminded him when his homework was due, who talked him through his anxiety attacks, who still tied his tie for him. It was no doubt a struggling shock to his system to see him indisposed in such a way, to be thrust into the position of caregiver when he was usually the caregiven.

"You baby him too much", Donovan always warned. "He'll never learn."

Maybe that was true, but Donovan didn't baby him enough. They still hadn't found a happy medium.

He heard his mother calling his name from downstairs and sighed, wishing he could pop another pain pill before he had to endure what was going to undoubtedly be the worst night of his life. But instead he had to find the unaided strength within himself to climb out of bed, breathe through the dizziness that doing so brought on, and walk downstairs to greet the boy who'd done this to him with a smile on his swollen, ugly face.

*** * ***

"And huckleberries," Matthew Lynch was telling his mother. "My brother makes them himself."

"Picks them, you mean?" His mother corrected cheekily. His insides turned. He knew that voice. It was the voice she used when Whitt complimented her looks, when Jay said something stupid that was supposed to be funny.

"Um. Yes." Matthew answered stiltedly, like he'd just entered the conversation after getting lost for a moment. "It's really good with ice cream."

"Good thing we have some," Jay's too loud voice filled the room. "Otherwise we wouldn't have been able to eat it."

Peter loitered outside the kitchen, arms crossed, breathing himself through another dizzy spell.

"Oh, well, it's alright without it," Matthew said, Jay's dumb joke sailing over his head. His mother laughed musically.

"He's just teasing you. Sit down here. Peter!"

"You don't have to shout," he said, pivoting into the doorway. Jay and Matthew were thankfully engrossed in other things, so it was only his mother who held his partially squinted gaze with a level one of her own.

"Peter," she said, her voice a hook that bent others to its will, "Come sit down here, next to Matthew, why don't you?"

They'd been angry, at first. His mother and Jay. They wanted the student who'd done this to him expelled. But Donovan had, of course, hastily explained in great detail the events that led to Peter's injuries, making sure to highlight how at fault Peter was, and they, of course, both agreed. They couldn't believe the poor boy who'd just been trying to defend himself wanted to come to their home and formally apologize. How thoughtful. How old-fashioned. Boys didn't have manners like that nowadays. Peter tried to tell them Matthew Lynch was not an old fashioned boy with manners, but an absolute airhead jock with hereditary violent tendencies. His mother had told him he should be ashamed of himself, passing judgment without knowing a person's story. Peter knew the Lynches story. Everyone did. But Jay had worked with Matthew's oldest brother Declan during a summer internship years ago and he was sure the Lynches were nice boys. He was bringing that up now, to which Matthew just sort of silently accepted before finally saying, "Oh. Cool."

Peter suppressed a snort. Matthew was on his bad side, vision-wise, so he chose to imagine Matthew had been fixing him with a look of utter disdain. It made him seem more tolerable. If the only way to get through this ridiculous stunt was through delirious fantasy, so be it.

"You're a junior, like Peter, yes?" His mother curiously wanted to know.

"Yes," Matthew answered simply. Jay placed a plate down in front of Peter. Oozing purple goo spilled out of a golden brown flaky crust, mixing unattractively with the melting scoop of vanilla ice cream next to it. Peter poked at the crust with his fork.

"What is this?" Peter's own curiosity got the better of him, as it always did.

"Fruit crisps," Matthew answered readily, like he'd been waiting for him to ask. "My brother made them."

"Which one?" Peter spoke without thinking, the sardonic twist to his voice not unnoticed by his mother, who thinned her lips at him.

"Ronan," Matthew replied, undeterred or ignorant of Peter's attitude. "He's the one Jensen was talking about."

Peter already knew this, and didn't know why Matthew thought it would be appropriate to bring that up now, in front of his mother and Jay. And yet he continued on, unprompted, to fill them in on the intimate details that Donovan had had the good sense to leave out.

"And why were they making fun of your brother?" His mother asked, confused.

"Because," Matthew said, "he's gay. And he has a boyfriend. Adam Parrish. They were making fun of him too, and he's like my family now too, so I was really upset."

"Just disgusting," Jay cut in heartily, eager to bust out his liberal chops. "Does the school know about this? Surely they couldn't have punished you if they did."

"He knocked Jensen unconscious," Peter reminded the table.

"Well," Jay huffed around a sip of his wine. "Sometimes a good old-fashioned sock to the jaw is the only way to get through to those people."

"Violence," Peter deadpanned in sarcastic agreement. "Always the answer."

Matthew shrugged.

"Adam Parrish," His mother spoke slowly, as if recalling a dream. "Oh! That's the sweet boy who sat for Peter." She touched Jay's arm. "Remember? The art project last year?"

Jay's laughter boomed across the table. "Well that explains his distaste for your brother, Matthew. Peter had such a crush."

Peter's soul slowly evaporated out of his body. He also hated it when Jay called him Peter. His dad had coined the nickname when Peter was a baby and he'd rock him to sleep to that Elton John song. Jay and the rest of his extended family always used his given name, until Jay got in the habit of hearing his mother say it day in and day out and decided he was allowed to use it too.

"My brother's nice," Matthew said, seemingly addressing his food more than anyone else. "You'd like him if you got to know him."

Peter knew Ronan Lynch just fine and he did not care to know anymore, even with shocking curveballs like his apparent knack for pastry baking.

"I'm waiting on my apology," Peter said, eager to divert the white hot embarrassment boiling his insides, turning to face Matthew Lynch head on. He looked nothing like either of his brothers and Peter, like the rest of the town, wondered if he'd been illegitimate. Ronan and Declan were carbon copies of their father, harsh lines and dark features. Matthew looked as if their mother had been unfaithful with a sun god. Golden curls spilled around his head like a fuzzy halo, cherubic cheeks and full pink lips did nothing to downplay this effect. If anything did, it was the whole of the rest of him. Stocky limbs and bulky muscles, squaring him off in a way that strangely contrasted the softness of his face.

"Priyabrata," his mother hissed, busting out his birth name so he knew he was in extra trouble.

"That's why he's here, isn't he?"

"I assumed," she softened her gaze when it flicked to Matthew. "That would be something the two of you spoke about privately."

Peter rolled his eyes, scraped back his chair. "I'll be in my room, then."

*** * ***

Peter didn't waste time climbing up the stairs, dizziness be damned, not wanting to overhear his mother and Jay apologize on his behalf.  _It's those pills_ , Jay was probably whispering hushedly now.  _Makes him cranky._

Actually, it was the constant head-numbing pain that did that, believe it or not. He did not blame Matthew Lynch, the source of this pain, contrary to what his turncoat best friend and easily impressed guardians seemed to think. He knew he shouldn't have waltzed into the middle of a four-person fight. He knew Matthew hadn't seen him before it was too late, he knew it had been a blow intended for his attackers. He could not and did not fault him for this. He just simply didn't like the guy. He was loud, obnoxious, and seemed to have rocks for brains. Peter remembered his freshman English class, Matthew and the Freemont twins always sat at the back, making lewd jokes and immature noises while the rest of the class had been trying to learn.

As if on comedic cue, Matthew Lynch chose this moment to shove open the door to Peter's room, startling him upright in his bed.

"Sorry," Matthew blinked at him. "Your dad said to just come in."

"He's not my dad," Peter replied, missing the feeling of getting to say that.

"Oh," Matthew's golden eyebrows scrunched together in contemplation. Then he said, "Who is he?"

Peter snorted. He thought the whole town knew this story. "He's my uncle. My dad's brother. He moved in after my dad died to help out. Then he just never moved out."

"Oh," Matthew said again, then, "Like Hamlet."

Peter choked on the breath he'd been taking. "Something like that, yeah. He's not a murderer, though, he's just annoying."

Matthew shrugged, a different impression of Peter's uncle imprinted on him that Peter had been too busy playing villain to intercept. He would have regretted this fact more if Matthew Lynch's opinion mattered to him any more than it did, which was not a lot.

"Um, well," Matthew said, staring at Peter's open window and not him. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry for what happened. I really didn't mean to hurt you, but I know that doesn't really matter because I did, but I kind of feel like it does matter, you know? I think meaning to hurt someone is worse than not meaning to. But I guess the person who's hurt doesn't feel that way, huh?" He'd stared pacing as he spoke, wringing his hands together strangely, making eye contact with everything in Peter's bedroom but Peter himself.

"Are you, like, on something?"

Matthew turned to him at this. "What?"

"You're tweaking," Peter nodded toward Matthew's hands.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

Peter shook his head. "Never mind."

"If I'm acting weird," he said slowly, like he was reciting lines from a movie. "It's probably because I'm nervous. And when I get nervous, I do things other people might think are weird. Because I'm autistic."

"Oh." Now it was Peter's turn to be dumbfounded. Guilt seeped into his bloodstream, panic pumping it through his veins in double-time. His mind masochistically reminded him of all the times he'd mentally branded Matthew as stupid and lazy for zoning out in class and never seeming to have anything intelligent to say. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Irony shamed him like a hot-poker brand. There was only one ignorant brute in his bedroom and it wasn't the fidgety boy standing awkwardly in front of his desk lamp.

Matthew shrugged. "I didn't know either until very recently. I had to get a mental health assessment before I could come back to school."

Peter cocked his unmarred eyebrow. "So that's what explains the bloodlust?"

Matthew actually laughed at that, a dorky, bubbly sound that Peter would have never imagined could come out of that quarterback's body. "No. The counselor said that was probably my repressed grief. She suggested I have a healthy outlet for aggression. My brother signed me up for a rugby team. I don't want to go, though. I like the art on your walls."

"Thanks," Peter said, choosing the easiest part of that to reply to. He was still processing his own ineptitude at being a human. Matthew wasn't an idiot, none of this was his fault, and his parents were dead.

"I'm sorry for acting like a jerk," he sighed, covering the ruined side of his face, feeling as if it had taken control of his brain like he was a character in some kind of Gothic cautionary tale.

"My brother acts like a jerk sometimes when he's upset or sad or scared or embarrassed," Matthew told him, peering closely at Peter's Ernst Ludwig Kirchner self-potrait poster. "I guessed that's what you were doing."

"You guessed right," Peter admitted, watching his thick index finger trace the muddy signature at the bottom of the painting. He felt suddenly embarrassed now, in a different way, as if he were indecently exposed.

"You into art, then?"

"Not really," Matthew chirped. "This guy looks sad."

"He was," Peter replied. He went through the trouble of briefly explaining the artwork and the artist behind it, because he didn't know what else to say. Thankfully Matthew Lynch didn't seem to think going on a tangent about the fractured state of the European art community during World War II was a strange thing to bring into a casual conversation.

"That is sad," Matthew agreed when he'd finished. "But I like it. The art. It's weird. And sad. It makes sense."

"How come you don't hang out with Terry and Tyler Freemont anymore?" Peter blurted out, one last thread of mystery yet to be solved. It itched at him worse than the stitches in his forehead. When Peter imagined the Freemonts and their clique, they were the ones burning books and waving flags, not thoughtfully contemplating the art of those victimized. This picture of Matthew Lynch before him now did not fit in which his previous interpretation.

"They don't like me anymore, I guess." Matthew said, indifferent as rattling off his birthdate. "I don't think they ever did. They just thought I could do something for them."

"They're not good people," Peter warned darkly. Matthew turned around to look at him.

"What did they do?"

"Nothing in particular," he answered carefully, hyperaware of the new awkwardness in the room of his own making. "They're just stuck up and rude and…" he searched for the best word, he didn't want to seem preachy. "Prejudiced."

"Oh. I didn't know," Matthew replied glumly. "I shared a room with Tyler when I lived on campus and they were nice to me. It's not like anyone else was really trying to be my friend so I hung out with them when they asked. Anyway, who cares about them? They're losers."

Peter was shocked by this blunt damnation, it didn't seem in Matthew's character to speak so harshly about other people. Then again, Peter was learning he knew approximately zero percent of what he thought he knew about Matthew Lynch.

"This guy," Matthew was already onto the next subject, picking up the picture frame that sat on Peter's desk. It was from the end of freshman year, he and Whitt and Donovan at the Whittaker lake cabin with their arms slung around each other. Matthew was pointing at Donovan. "He stayed with me after the fight."

"That's what he tells us," Peter said. "He's quite taken with you."

"He's very kind," Matthew said, ignoring or not picking up on the bite in Peter's voice. "And clever."

Those words were scarcely found in the reviews Peter often received on Donovan's behalf. People thought Donovan was standoffish, intimidating, and worst of all, thinks-he's-too-good. That was the price he paid for speaking his mind and taking no shit. Peter was too much of a diplomat to be able to afford that. He hoarded connections with people like marbles in a box. They'd come in handy one way or another. What was the old saying? Keep your friends close, your enemies closer? Peter liked to keep potential enemies close. They'd either be of use to him one day or prove themselves worthless beyond being despised at a distance, like the Freemont twins. Matthew Lynch, he was sensing, had a lot of potential. In what, exactly, he wasn't sure. But he wanted him around long enough to figure it out.

"You're going back to school tomorrow?"

Matthew winced, like Peter had touched a raw nerve. "Unfortunately."

"You should find Donovan, first thing." Peter spoke the words before he could fully decide if this what was he truly wanted to say. "Tell him I said, if only if only the woodpecker sighs, and that I want you to go with him and Whitt for lunch."

"That's from  _Holes_ ," Matthew said, recognizing the line.

"It is," Peter agreed. "It's a code. So when passing information through someone else, we know it's legit."

"Won't you be at school?" Matthew asked, Peter shook his head, forgetting for the millionth time how much that still hurt.

"I'm not going back until this," he gestured somewhere at his face, his eyes still focusing. "Looks less…" he dropped his hand. "Like this."

Matthew frowned. He walked, if that's what you could call his movement, closer, idling at the edge of Peter's bed. "Why did you do it? Jump in the middle of the fight."

"It was three against one, I thought Jensen's lapdogs were going to seriously hurt you," Peter sighed, rueful. "I didn't know you were The Incredible Hulk."

A crease formed between Matthew's eyebrows. "I don't like fighting. I've never gotten in a fight like that before. And I'm not going to again."

Peter huffed out a bitterly amused breath. "I guess it was just my lucky day, then."

*** * ***

It was Wednesday, which meant Matthew was going back to school. He kept hoping Ronan would forget to turn in the paperwork from his classes and counseling session and then Headmaster Child would expel him or something, but the night before he'd knocked on his bedroom door and entered with a wrapped package in his hands. He waited for Matthew to open it to speak.

"Noise cancelling headphones," Ronan explained. "Your counselor said sensory overload is a major trigger for you. You're allowed to wear these in the hallways and during lunch or study period or whatever. Not while you're in class."

"What'd you say?" Matthew said, flipping the switch on the side.

Ronan glowered at him in a way he'd only ever seen him glower at Adam back when he was in love with him but pretending not to be.

"Are you gonna be okay?"

Matthew shrugged.

"That's not an answer," Ronan pressed. He looked worried. He looked like Declan.

It was at this time Chainsaw tapped at the glass of his window. Matthew rose from his bed to open the window and let her inside. When he was seated again, she nestled into his lap while he stroked her feathers.

"Traitor," Ronan spat at her. She made a disinterested squawking noise in reply. It distracted Ronan from his questioning and he grumbled at Matthew to make sure to set an alarm for school because he wasn't going to wake his ass up.

"How come you get to stay?" Matthew asked Chainsaw, thinking of Opal again. He thought about her a lot. He wondered what it was like where she was. Was she happier, like Ronan said? Was she alone? Did she miss everyone out here and want to come back? Or was it better where she was, even if she was alone? Chainsaw made an offended noise at him.

Declan had spent the last summer teaching Matthew how to drive, with promises of a car of his own in the near future, but then things had gotten bad and scary and he'd been shuffled around between brothers and Declan was stressed out and busy all the time and Ronan was sad and missing Adam all the time so Matthew's future car was forgotten. He didn't mind, really. He liked taking the bus to school. He had to take the city bus, since Aglionby was a private boarding school and they didn't have an official transportation system. He remembered the noisy puke yellow school buses from his elementary and junior high days. Cramped, smelly, unbearably loud. The city bus, especially this early in the morning, was calm and gray and quiet. Though with the new headphones Ronan had made him, he supposed he might have been able to handle any sort of bus. With his eyes closed, all he could hear was the soft tinkly morning music playing from his iphone, the vibration of movement under his feet as relaxing as ocean waves.

Donovan was easy to find once Matthew got to school, he was very tall and very singular-looking. He had a uniquely handsome face, like a celebrity, like he was the only person who was allowed to look like that.

"Hey," he said, announcing his presence as discreetly as he could. Donovan and another boy stopped their conversation to turn and look at him. One looking up, the other looking down. The shorter one, with messily styled coffee brown hair and even darker freckles splattered across his pale face, blinked at Matthew as if he was possibly hallucinating him.

"Hey," Donovan spoke, his voice deep and full of calming assurance.

"Peter told me I should find you when I got to school today," Matthew relayed the information quickly, wanting this awkward-feeling formality out of the way. "He said we should have lunch together."

"Why?" Not-Donovan asked, looking too confused to be being mean. Whitt, that was what Peter had called him. He remembered the picture in Peter's room, how happy he'd looked in it, and felt something stir uncomfortably in his chest.

Matthew shrugged. "I guess he thinks we should be friends."

Whitt's expression looked nothing like it had in the picture. He turned toward Donovan, smacking his arm like he was supposed to say something.

"Oh yeah," Matthew's cheeks flushed, remembering he forgot the code phrase. He rattled it out hastily. He should have opened with that.

"Alright then," Donovan shifted his backpack higher on his shoulder. "What's your schedule?"

"World History II, Calculus I, AP Lit, Lunch, Study Period, Ceramics, ICP."

"You're in my ICP class?" Whitt asked, eyebrows raised. "I've never noticed you."

"We all have the same study period," Donovan said. "I think you have the same lit class as Peter. Other than that, no dice. We're all horrible at math. Me and Peter are still in pre-cal. Whitt's stuck on Algebra II."

"Hey!" Whitt exclaimed.

"I guess I'll see you at lunch, then." said Matthew, and continued forward on his way to World History. He tried to pay attention but the French Revolution was too boring and he was too excited about what would happen at Lunch with Donovan and Whitt. Even the pleasant monotony of calculus couldn't distract him. He'd never really had friends before. Especially after what Peter had told him about Terry and Tyler, he definitely didn't count that. Donovan and Whitt were nice people, with interesting faces, and cool code phrases. He wanted to be part of what they were, whatever it was. He tried to remember what his brother Declan was always saying about first impressions and how to make positive, lasting ones. He'd sort of already ruined that by smashing Peter in the face and all that, but Peter seemed to have gotten over that quickly enough. He removed that unfortunate event as a factor in their perception of him. Still, he had to make himself…wantable, worthy of their time and attention. He only barely remembered during AP Lit he should probably take notes for Peter, since they apparently shared the class and Peter wasn't there. They were starting a new novel and already had a pre-reading assignment for it. His mind buzzed with productive satisfaction, anticipating the surprised pleasure Peter would feel at Matthew's unprompted good deed. Though he didn't have much experience of his own, he'd been observing the way Ronan and his friends interacted for quite a long time. He felt with some confidence he knew what to do to make his support and thought apparent in a way another person would appreciate. The only problem was that he didn't know Peter or Donovan or Whitt well enough to know precisely what sort of things would please them the most, make his dedication to this new friendship plain, but lunch would of course, be a good place to begin to gather the information he needed.

"Did Peter tell you when he's coming back to school?" Whitt asked of him, still half standing as he attempted to sit down across from them at one of the wooden picnic-style tables that littered the Aglionby courtyard. Ronan had packed Matthew a pretty basic lunch, a grilled turkey and swiss sandwich with home-baked potato chips for the side dish. He wished he had something more enticing to offer them, like a soda or a fruit roll-up.

"No," Matthew replied, staring dismally down at his lunchbox, wondering if half his sandwich would suffice as an offering. "He said he didn't want to come back with his face looking all messed up."

Donovan laughed at that, a low rumbling sound, like slow rolling thunder. "Ever the egotist."

"He doesn't want to deal with people talking shit and staring at him," Whitt said, his tone bristly. "People are over the fight right now, sure, but if he came back, the whole school would jump on it. There's nothing else to talk about."

"Does he think that shit's gonna heal overnight?" Donovan retorted with an eyeroll. "At that rate, he might as well just skip the rest of the semester."

"This is bad," Whitt's voice wavered, like he wished he wasn't saying what he was. "This is really bad."

"Drama queens," Donovan sighed, casting Matthew a purposeful glance, but there was something uneasy in his eyes. Matthew struggled to understand what exactly what the situation was before him and how he could be of use to it.

Whitt seemed to be upset that Peter didn't want to come back to school. Donovan was…annoyed, maybe? Worried? It was hard to tell. Though he wasn't entirely sure of the problem, the solution to him seemed clear.

"We need a distraction," he said, and Donovan and Whitt turned sharply toward him, confusion writ on their faces. Matthew belatedly realized he didn't know how much time had passed since he'd been thinking and when he spoke. He cleared his throat, fingered the rim of his lunchbox rhythmically. He locked eyes with the fountain in the center of the courtyard, just over Whitt's shoulder, and explained himself.

"If something else happened, something really crazy, everyone would be talking about that and no one would notice Peter coming back. Or if they did, it wouldn't be as exciting as whatever else is going on, so they wouldn't really care."

"Okay," Whitt said slowly, looking to Donovan and then back to Matthew, expressionless. "Like what?"

Matthew shrugged. "I could get in another fight."

He'd sworn off fighting for the rest of his life, but this was different. This was fighting to help someone, possibly someone who might be his friend, which was a good thing. A necessary thing.

Donovan shook his head. "That'd just remind everyone of the last fight and Peter coming back would add even more fuel to the fire. It can't be anything that links back to Peter. If we do something, no one can know it was us."

 _We._  Matthew's stomach trilled in excitement.  _Us._

They spent the rest of lunch brainstorming ideas. Print out Mr. Warwick's online dating profile and post it around the school? No, everyone knew Peter was his favorite. People would tease him about it. Pull the fire-alarm? Too boring. Call in a fake bomb threat? Too we-might-get-arrested. By the time study period rolled around, they still hadn't come up with a concrete plan and since study period was for "quiet reflection" and they couldn't speak, had to switch to texting. Donovan took down Matthew's phone number and created a group chat for the three of them. Matthew had never been in a group chat before. It was a little overwhelming, watching the messages zing back and forth, how quickly Donovan and Whitt bounced from subject to subject without stopping. He just sat back and watched, trying to keep up. The headphones Ronan had made him helped, cancelling out the background noise of backpacks zipping and pencils scratching and papers shuffling made it easier to focus on the rapidfire conversation lighting up his phone screen. Whitt and Donovan had gone completely off topic, arguing about Whitt's apparent misuse of a word and Whitt calling Donovan a know-it-all and Donovan telling Whitt it wasn't his fault he couldn't handle criticism and so Matthew closed his eyes and tried to think. He wasn't very good at coming up with plans, he'd come to find out. All his ideas seemed to spark up in a great big flame but then promptly flicker out before he could firmly grab ahold of any of them. Feeling a little dejected, a little manic, he sent out a private text message of his own.

**If you needed to do something that would get the whole school talking but no one could know that you did it, what would you do?**

Three dots appeared immediately and Matthew's pulse quickened with free-falling anticipation.

_Can I ask why this thing needs to be done?_

**It's to help someone.**  Matthew typed, feeling no need for secrecy.  **He's embarrassed to come back to school because his face is really beat-up looking from** —Well, he didn't need to go into that much detail—  **an accident that happened and so me and his friends are trying to come up with something that would distract the whole school and give them something to talk about instead.**

There was a pause before the three dots appeared again and Matthew bounced his legs involuntarily, waiting impatiently. It was, of course, worth the heart-pounding adrenaline he still felt faint from when it finally appeared.

He copied the message that had been sent to him in reply and pasted it into the group chat.

Holy shit, Whitt replied.

Diabolical, said Donovan.

Matthew beamed, sending a quick message of gratitude to his savior.

**Oh and DO NOT tell Ronan about this please**

_Wouldn't dream of it_ , Adam replied, punctuating his message with a zipper-faced emoji and two pink swirling hearts.

*** * ***

High off the thrill of espionage, and being useful, Matthew bounded into ICP with more zeal than any student surely ever had in the history of the class's existence. He found Whitt at the back of the room and dropped himself into the seat next to him.

"Hey Whitt," he smiled out of the corner of his mouth, a little breathless from his jaunt over.

Whitt didn't look up from the comic book he was reading. "My name is Thomas," he told Matthew, voice flat. "Only my friends call me Whitt."

"Oh," said Matthew, pivoting back in his seat, uncertain of what he should say to that. His chest felt tight suddenly, the balloon of energy he'd been carrying now popped and withering in his stomach.

 _That makes sense_ , Matthew's brain told him after a few moments of contemplation. Peter and Donovan called him Whitt because he was their friend. Matthew didn't know that was a rule and had wrongly assumed he should too. He and Thomas had only just met. They didn't know each other very well at all. All they did was talk about how to help Peter, no other important decisions had been made throughout the conversation. How could he even know of Matthew's intentions if he didn't make them clear?

Renewed with purpose, he ripped out a sheet of paper from his notebook and scrawled out a quick message, taking care to fold it nice and tidy so he could transfer it to Thomas's desk without being noticed.

He didn't want to be rude, so he refused to watch Thomas read the note, which he did with excruciating slowness, and pretended to be sharpening his pencil when he caught the peripheral sight of Thomas folding it back up and flicking it onto his desk.

He opened the note carefully, casually, reading over his original message first.

_Dear Thomas,_

_I know we don't know each other very well but from what I know so far I like you a lot. You're very caring about your friends which is a great quality and you're good at coming up with creative ideas. Your dark freckles and pale skin remind me of cookies and cream ice cream, which is my favorite. I want to be friends with you and I was wondering if you wanted to be friends with me too. I like reading so we have that in common. Anything else you want to know, just ask. So, can we be friends?_

_From, Matthew_

It still sounded perfectly reasonable and nicely phrased to him, but Thomas' reply was rather short in comparison and he prepared himself for disappointment as his eyes traveled over it.

_Dear Matthew,_

_I think you might be a siren or otherwise supernatural creature of seduction, but there's nothing I can do about it. Consider our friendship henceforth officially active. Only if I can call you Matty, though. I've always wanted to call someone that. Plus it suits your curly beach boy hair and overall dreamy disposition._

_Yours Newly,_

_Whitt_

Matthew had never had a nickname before, other than the occasional buddy or bro from Adam and his brothers. He didn't know if he was sold on the idea but he didn't give himself time to think it over, really, just quickly scribbled back a reply in the affirmative. Whitt was smart and funny and cool and Matthew would gladly concede this condition if it meant he got to be friends with him.

_Dear Whitt,_

_Sure, I'm okay with that._

_Your Friend,_

_Matty_

He couldn't help himself this time and watched not very subtly as Whitt opened the note, scanned over Matthew's reply, then folded it back up and slid it into the breast pocket of his blazer. When he turned to see Matthew observing him, his lips slid into the lopsided hint of a smile. It wasn't anywhere close to what he'd looked like in that picture he'd seen in Peter's room, all teeth and beaming bright as the sun, but it did something irrevocable to Matthew's insides, as if the molecular code that made him up had been injected with a new strain of information that altered everything else within it. Not in a way that would make any difference to anyone else, but all the difference to the boy who could feel it on the inside. He would do whatever it took to keep this. Unfathomable, unspeakable things. Was that what it always felt like to have friends? Real friends? It seemed a little bit unbearable, and very exhausting. For someone who tried to avoid change at all costs, it was a shattering shock to his system, but one that he felt with unshakeable certainty he would no longer be able to live without.

*** * ***

The day Peter Mirchandani came back to school was a largely momentous occasion for four boys in particular and meant absolutely nothing to anyone else, because Peter may or may not have overestimated how interesting his battle scarred face was, and because the clandestine plan of the three boys who'd concocted it had gone off without a hitch. The school was in an uproar about the mass email that had been sent out from Headmaster Child's official account, announcing that Aglionby would be welcoming a small select group of its first female students on a trial basis. The currently all male student body was torn in two, trying to decide whether this was a devastating blow to their boy's club or the best thing that had ever happened. Alumnus donors were calling the school, threatening to stop giving money if Aglionby was going to allow girls to attend. Who ever heard of a Raven  _Girl_? Child was running around like a headless chicken, controlling damage, talking to the press, assuring everyone Aglionby Academy was a place of proud tradition and swearing immediate expulsion upon the pranksters once they'd been caught. No, he currently did not have any leads.

"An evil genius," Peter mused, slinging a slightly possessive arm around Matthew Lynch's neck. "I knew I wanted you on our side for a reason."

"I had help," Matthew replied sheepishly, ducking out from under Peter's arm. Peter frowned at him, wondering if Matthew was making some sort of statement, that he was not one to be touched possessively, then shrugged it off, and the conversation continued as if the awkward hiccup hadn't happened.

Donovan and Whitt demurred at this, insisting it was Matthew who'd been the brains of the operation. Matthew opened his mouth and closed it, like he wanted to correct them but had then thought better of it. It was no matter, they were already onto a different subject. Halloween was coming up and that was of course a very big deal that needed to be discussed at length. The coordinated costume plan Peter had been thinking of wouldn't work anymore because now there were four people to coordinate with, not three.

"Four horseman of the apocalypse," Whitt suggested.

Donovan snorted at the thought. "Good idea. You could just strip naked and be famine."

Peter thought it was a keepable idea, not Whitt stripping his skinny self naked for a costume, but the horseman thing. "I'll put it on the list," he told Whitt with a supportive smile. He knew it wouldn't be what they went with in the end, but it would make Whitt feel like he'd made a useful contribution, which was good for his self esteem. Whitt's self esteem was a thing Peter worried about, and Donovan's flagrant disregard for it was just a long accepted and ever present obstacle in keeping things balanced between the three of them.

Four of them, now, he reminded himself. He'd gone and made the impulsive decision to induct a new member into their group. He was grateful for what Matthew had done for him, a week's worth of AP Lit notes and a tabbed list of assignments Peter had missed, plus the whole distraction plot. But he couldn't help but worry he might have made too hasty a decision and underestimated just how big of a decision it was.

"Does it have to be a four person thing?" Matthew asked, turning the heads of the boys who sat with him. "We could do two and two."

"If we do that," Whitt perked up at the idea, "I call Matty as my partner."

"Beauty and the Beast," Donovan quipped.

"Who's who?" Whitt squinted, waiting to be offended or not.

"Figure it out," Donovan replied.

"Batman," Whitt countered, pointing his fork at Peter and then Donovan. "and Alfred."

Donovan was too ready, as if he could read Whitt's thoughts before he spoke them. "Why am I the butler? Because I'm black?"

"No," Whitt's cheeks flushed, more annoyed than embarrassed since he'd finally figured out Donovan did this  _just_  to fluster him. "If I was being racist, I would have said you were Lucius."

"Lucius isn't a butler," Donovan said, delighted at the corner he'd backed Whitt into. "That would have been less racist."

"You're Alfred because you're smart and strong and super helpful," Matthew cut in, stopping Whitt and Donovan's argument dead in its tracks. Obviously, the insult had been that Donovan was a second fiddle, subordinate to Peter, but neither Donovan nor Whitt seemed to want to explain that to the sweet smile on Matthew's face.

"Anyway," Donovan cleared his throat. "You can't just decide who your partner is. We should draw names, to make it fair."

"Alright, fine." Whitt conceded. "But whoever I get should know I'm picking the theme."

What was more, Peter realized, was that Whitt and Donovan were actually taking the two by two suggestion seriously. As long as they'd been friends, they'd done costumes as a group. And while they tossed their own suggestions into the ring, they always accepted Peter's final choice in the end. No one at the table had even asked Peter what he  _thought_  of this idea, and they were carrying on as if it had been approved. He cast a sideways glance toward Matthew, stirring the pieces of him he had in his mind together, trying to melt them into a uniform substance he could make sense of.

Lynch was obviously a charmer, he had Donovan and Whitt eating out of the palm of his hand. Donovan Yates, the most uneasily won person Peter had ever encountered, and Whitt, his loyal little Whitt, who'd been staunchly anti-Matthew just a few short days prior. It was possible Matthew just had a natural charisma, that he drew people to him without trying. Or he was as calculated and cunning as they come. Peter didn't know which truth would be less troubling. Matthew was supposed to be  _his_  experiment. He'd been expecting his friends to grudgingly accept it for his own sake, not to fall in love with it. He'd lost control of his own machination before he'd even had the chance to start it. In any case, he was simply going to have to see it through its course, whatever that was going to be. If Matthew really was going to challenge the dynamics of the group, well, Peter had never been one to back down from a challenge.

While Peter was stewing in his thoughts, the boys had all written their names down on slips of paper and tossed them into Donovan's emptied plastic salad container. Whitt shook it at him.

"Pick one out," Whitt instructed. "No Wait." He shook the container harder this time, as if this would thoroughly randomize the outcome. "Okay now."

Peter sighed, reaching into the salad bowl with an uneasy dread in his heart, it felt like  _something_  to do this, some kind of acquiescence he wasn't prepared to make. And as if fate felt the need confirm this, he unfolded the paper and read aloud,

"Matthew."

"You're not picking the theme," Donovan said, to which Whitt balked in devious pleasure.

"You already agreed!"

"I thought luck would be on my side," Donovan huffed. "I'm not gonna be some stupid sidekick from one of your comic books."

"I haven't decided on the theme yet," Whitt replied coolly, already drunk on his newfound power. "And you'll be whatever I tell you to be. Those are the rules you agreed to."

"Bullshit," Donovan grumbled, but his tone was that of a resigned man, ready to meet his maker. Peter smirked inwardly. It would be amusing to see what Whitt cooked up and watch Donovan helplessly go along with it. It was a good idea, the pair-off approach. He just wished it'd been his. And that he wasn't stuck with the person he new least what do with out of the three boys surrounding him.

"What are we going to do?" Matthew asked Peter, and the whole group turned to him, waiting eagerly for a response. The whiplash powershift startled him. He didn't know if Matthew was baiting him or not. But he threw his own curveball back, anyway.

"You've been coming up with such good ideas," he told Matthew. "Why don't you tell me?"

Matthew scrunched up his face, squinting in contemplation. The sun was shining down on him like a spotlight, highlighting his round cheeks and turning his straw colored hair to a shimmering gold.

"Oh," Whitt said suddenly, "My God." He'd grabbed Donovan's arm and squeezed it hard, to which Donovan looked down at with a jolt of fright. "Lightning has just struck my brain."

"That's from  _Hook_ ," said Matthew, recognizing the quote.

"Achilles," Whitt ignored him, thrusting the title upon him with a manic authority in his eyes the likes of which Peter had never seen, then turned his high beams on him. "And Patroclus."

"Whoa," Donovan's reaction was low in his throat. His hand had slapped down over Whitt's, squeezing back. "So perfect."

"Okay," Matthew agreed, ambivalent. "What should I wear?"

"Your fucking face," Whitt made an invisible check mark in the air with his index finger. "Like, done."

Peter's insides sputtered, his mind wholly unprepared for the shock of this revelation. He'd been prepared for something silly, or something basic, or a clever combination of the two. This was a  _couple's_  costume. As in, romantic. Lovers. Did Matthew realize what he'd agreed to? Was this another test? Was he feeling him out the same way Peter was feeling him? A poor choice of words, Peter now had unwelcome images floating around his brain involving Matthew Lynch and chitons and  _feeling him,_  and he stamped it down furiously. There was no way he could back out of this now, Matthew had already agreed and if he dissented it would just seem weird. And he needed to remain unflappable, if Matthew was trying to flap him.

"Fine by me." He cleared his throat and gave Matthew a confident smile. "Watch your heel."

Matthew cupped a hand over his brow, shading his face from the unrepentant sun. His eyes were a multi-colored optical illusion as he fixed them on Peter. "I'm watching him."

If that was a threat, Peter had some unsavory things to evaluate about himself, the thrill that pulsed through him a primal reaction to the very thought. He laughed, the sound bubbling out of him like the reactive fizz from a shaken up can of soda. He broke first, unwilling to engage of a game of staredown chicken with his wits not fully about him. Matthew went back to his sandwich, contentedly chomping away like he hadn't a care or nefarious thought in the world. Whitt and Donovan had since untangled themselves from each other and had gone back to arguing over what their own costumes would be while they took turns eating out of Whitt's pudding cup with one shared spoon. He had the uncanny feeling that something was  _starting_ , something no one among the four boys present had intended, an unfinished machine finally clicking its last parts together and rumbling to life. Whether this starting thing was good or bad, Peter couldn't say, but he knew with an inexorable sureness was nothing any one of them could do to stop it.

*** * ***

Slow Down.

Relax.

Close your eyes.

And Breathe.

Breathing can transform your whole life.

The only thing more ridiculous than that statement was the fact that Ronan actually fucking tried it. It was, as he suspected, bullshit. He opened his eyes to the startling discovery that he'd been connected to "a kind human being".

**You are now chatting with a Helpful Hand! Say Hello!**

Yeah, that was definitely not going to happen. He sat there, staring at the bright white screen, unflinching in his resolve not to make the first move.

_GoodListener365 is typing…_

**Hello.**

Ronan thought for a much too long amount of time, spinning every greeting option available within the English language before settling reluctantly on

Hi

_GoodListener365 is typing…_

**How are you today?**

Somehow Ronan found himself typing out the words  _I'm feeling depressed_ before he could even process how awkward and stupid this was.

_GoodListener365 is typing…_

**I understand what it's like to feel depressed. It's no fun. What brings you here today?**

Like, what the fuck? Why had he wasted 5 minutes of his life filling out that stupid Wellness Questionnaire if GoodListener365 didn't already know what the fuck was going on? He almost started typing something bitchy just out of a deeply innate instinct but quickly changed gears mid-thought. This wasn't going to help him. GoodListener365 had barely said anything and already he felt nothing but decidedly worse. He closed out of the website and rolled over in bed. His phone lay mockingly close to his face. He had two missed calls from Adam and a text informing Ronan of his latest academic achievement. He knew Adam was probably upset right now, disappointed or even angry that Ronan hadn't responded. He was a shit boyfriend. A shit brother. A shit son.

He exhaled suddenly, a flash flood of emotions filling up his chest until the pressure was unbearable. He sat up in bed, staring pointlessly at the wall in front of him. It was obscured by artwork and posters, his cluttered bookshelf stuffed with knick knacks and old textbooks and dream things. He didn't understand any of it. It was like it all belonged to someone else, someone Ronan had never met, but hated very much. Almost as much as he'd grown to hate his own reflection. He wanted to tip the bookshelf over and let it all crash to the floor. He wanted to rip the posters off the wall. But that would require getting up and out of bed, so he couldn't indulge this impulse. He wanted to talk to Adam but he couldn't. What would he say? Anything he could strain himself to come up with would only stress Adam out, worry him, drive a bigger wedge between them. He wished Adam were here but at the same time, the thought of it repulsed him. The thought of Adam in general repulsed him, which was disturbing enough for him to finally pick up his phone and text the only person who he could even fathom handling the burden of their existence, given his lifelong practice.

**I need help.**

_Where are you?_ Declan texted back immediately.

 **Home.** Ronan said. He could tell Declan was waiting for him to say more, but he was waiting for Declan to prove himself better than GoodListener365.

_What's going on?_

_Are you hurt?_

**No**

**I'm just fucked up**

_What do you mean?_

**I don't feel okay**

**I'm not okay**

_Where's Matthew?_

**He's never around**

**That's not the point**

**Nevermind**

Declan was, as usual, undeterred by Ronan's shitty attitude and pressed on.

_I know it's hard with Adam and your friends being far away, but you'll see them soon._

Only slightly more intuitive than a chat bot, his brother. For some reason it was less awkward to cut to the chase with his human brother, though.

**I miss mom and dad**

**All I think about is killing myself like constantly and I used to think I couldn't because of Matthew but he has friends now and you'd take care of him if I was gone. Sometimes I think I can't because of Adam but really I think he would be like way better off and happier if I was gone so idk it's a toss up.**

Declan did not respond immediately this time. Ronan snorted and rolled away from his phone, he'd grown tired of looking at it. At some point he dozed off for an indiscernible amount of time. He woke to his same unfamiliarly familiar surroundings. As much as he hated this room, he couldn't even comprehend leaving it. He rolled over to his phone expectantly, knowing there'd be dozens of missed calls and voicemails from his brother. He was surprised the police weren't already here.

Instead, there was only one unread text message. Furrowing his brow, he clicked it open.

_I'm sorry. I miss them too. Luckily for me I stay pretty distracted making sure neither you nor Matthew get kidnapped or murdered or otherwise taken out of this world, so it keeps my mind off most other things. As much as I'd love for you to lighten the load for me, planning your funeral would be such a goddamn migraine I'm getting one just thinking about it. I'd probably have a stroke from the stress and then Matthew would be left alone, so yeah, you can't die. At least, not right now. Check back with me in a few months._

**I don't even want a funeral** , Ronan texted back, annoyed and sullen and infuriatingly soothed, somehow, by his brother's bitingly sarcastic words.

 _Funerals are for the living, not the dead_ , Declan argued.

_Plus I'd still have to dispose of your body somehow, either in the family plot or burning you to dust, which would take time, energy, and mental effort I just can't afford._

**I wish there was a way I could just fucking disappear so none of that would matter.**

_Yeah_ ,  _well if if's and buts were candied nuts we'd all have a merry christmas, wouldn't we._

 **I kind of thought you'd be more freaked out by this,** Ronan found himself admitting, almost a little rueful.

_I can't really be fazed by much these days._

_You can thank yourself for that._

_I know it sucks to feel this way, Ronan, but you have to hold on to logic. So many people would be devastated, heartbroken beyond fucking repair if you weren't around anymore. And I know that's fuckall helpful to you right now, but it's the truth._

**You're right** , Ronan texted back, pausing for just enough time for his next message to be all the more satisfying.

**That is fuckall helpful.**

_What would make you feel better?_

Ronan was surprised by this question. In part because he now wondered why he hadn't really thought of it, himself.

 **I don't know** , he answered, frustrated and honest.

**I'm so fucked up right now that like nothing is good even things that are supposed to make me happy. If Adam just randomly walked through the door right now and straddled me in bed and put his fingers in my mouth I'd be like ugh gross I hate this.**

_Why would he put his fingers in your mouth?_

**It's like my number one kink and the only thing in the world that keeps me going like when am i going to get to suck on Adam's fingers again so yeah the fact that even that seems boring and gross to me right now tells me that I am severely fucked up in a way I don't even understand and I'm scared I'm going to be like this forever and if that's the case there is seriously no point in me being alive, regardless of who it would hurt or how much it would stress you out. I just can't take it.**

_Well alright_. Declan texted back, his nasally voice clear even in text.

_Do you want to talk to someone?_

**I'm talking to you aren't I?**

_A professional, I mean._

Of course that was his brother's solution to the problem. Pawn it off on someone else, throw money at it until it goes away. It's not like Ronan could be honest with anyone except the people in his life that already knew the things you couldn't just tell a normal person.

 **How did my parents die? Well, funny you should ask** , he texted this last thought to Declan, needing him to know how stupid his suggestion had been. Declan's reply was swift this time.

_Bypass the shrink, then._

_I could get you some medicine._

**I've already been to Prozac Nation** , Ronan reminded him unkindly. And everyone knew how that little experiment had turned out.

 _There are different types of medications out there_ , Declan responded, true to his earlier claim, unfazed by the blunt reminder of Ronan's 'episode'.

_Some antidepressants make things worse, it happens to a lot of people. It doesn't mean there isn't one out there that couldn't help you._

After a few minutes of silence from Ronan, he added,

_You could try the one I take._

Somehow, Ronan was shocked by this. He already knew Declan took sleeping pills, or used to, or whatever. But this, strangely, just didn't make sense. Declan was so emotionally constipated, Ronan couldn't imagine him mustering up the energy to even be depressed. What did he have to be depressed about? Everything always worked out in his favor.

A stray thought buzzed around his head like a fly.  _If you hadn't taken her to that place_ , Matthew had said to him. He'd taken Matthew to visit their mother in Cabeswater. She'd hugged him and called him her love. He got to spend time with her. Before she died.

Declan hadn't.

Ronan's grief was so big, so overwhelming, he realized that until Matthew had spat those spiteful words at him he hadn't even thought about his little brother's grief, as if the possibility of it had just deleted itself from his brain. Too much information to process at once, just get rid of it. He already knew he was a selfish person, but this particular degree of narcissism was an alarming discovery. He scrolled back up to the earlier message from Declan.

_I miss them too. Luckily for me I stay pretty distracted making sure neither you nor Matthew get kidnapped or murdered or otherwise taken out of this world, so it keeps my mind off most other things…_

**I need a distraction** , he texted his brother. Working on the farm obviously wasn't enough. In fact, it wasn't really a distraction at all. It was a cruel, daily reminder of everything he'd lost.

**Something time consuming. Something to take my mind off everything else.**

_I have an idea_ , his brother told him.

_But you have to trust me._

Ronan suppressed his eyeroll, as if his brother were here to scold him for doing so.

**Okay.**

_First, I want you to go into my old room._

Ronan was thrown again.  **What?**

_Just do it._

Ronan sighed. He had nothing else to do. He didn't know how he managed to make it all the way from his bed to Declan's old bedroom when half an hour ago he could barely roll from one side of it to the other, but he did it, awaiting further instructions.

 **I have arrived** , he informed his brother drily.

_Pop the loose floorboard, under the foot of where my bed used to be._

Another thought that had never occurred to Ronan. Had Declan really thought Ronan had cared enough to do something with his old bedroom?

 **Your bed is still here** , Ronan told him. He watched the typing bubble appear, disappear, appear again.

 _Then it'll be easy to find_  was all Declan said in reply.

Ronan kicked the frame of Declan's old bed, scooting it slowly and inefficiently inch by inch until he could see one slightly out out place looking strip of polished wood. He nudged it with his foot and it caved in on one side and flipped up at the other. He knelt down to see what it was inside Declan wanted him to find.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me", he spoke aloud to himself, disdainfully eyeing a full bottle of Xanax, prescribed in some random person's name.

 **This is not what I fucking meant by a distraction** , Ronan texted back furiously, at a loss as to why he was still even entertaining this stupid conversation with his stupid brother who just wanted to shove pills down his throat.

 _This is not what I fucking meant by saying I had an idea for one_ , Declan replied.

 _This is so you can get a good night's rest. And I'll tell you about my idea tomorrow_.

Of all the experiences with pills he'd ever had, none of them had ever been positive. He'd been sedated by a pill before, he remembered the way his limbs had gone heavy and numb, too hard to move, it was like a waking nightmare.

 _It's one milligram, Ronan._  Declan said, as if he could read his brother's thoughts.

_If you don't like it the effects will wear off in a few hours._

_And I'll give you my twitter password and you can tweet whatever you want from it._

**Damn. You really want to drug me that badly.**

_Yes, Ronan, you've figured me out. I've got pickers waiting outside the house to harvest your organs and sell them on the black market._

Ronan scoffed out a surprised laugh. He'd forgotten Declan could be funny. He didn't have a witty enough reply to that, so in fair punishment for this he cracked open the pill bottle and shook one into the palm of his hand, bringing it to his lips and swallowing it dry.

He was starting to think his brother had been playing some kind of Jedi mind trick on him. That the pills were some kind of placebo, or something. He thought the effects would be immediate, but it was rounding on twenty minutes and he still felt absolutely nothing. Enough time had passed that his heart had finally begun to slow in his chest, the head splitting pressure in his brain of rapidfire thoughts had ebbed to a dull, barely there ache. His muscles had gone lax as he lay in his bed, staring at the walls of his room, watching as they transformed themselves back into something he could once again recognize.

Oh.

He rolled over and reached for his phone, the thought of texting Adam back now seeming not only no longer too heavy a cross to bear, but monumentally insufficient, he called him instead.

"Hey you," Adam answered breathily before the third ring. "I was starting to think you'd lost your phone again."

"Sorry," Ronan murmured, relaxing further into his bed, soothed by the sound of Adam's voice. "It's been a long day."

"Are you drunk?" Adam asked, his voice a mixture of confusion and amusement and the upwardly inflected spike of something like concern.

"No," Ronan slurred, offended. "Just sleepy." And maybe a little high, but that was neither here nor there.

Adam made a cooing noise, half sweet half mocking, "My sleepy boy."

"I need a bedtime story," Ronan breathed into the phone, deciding that benzodiazepines were a wonderful invention he couldn't believe no one had ever told him about.

"What kind of story?" Adam asked him, he sounded so painfully close, like Ronan could almost feel his breath on his skin.

"A good one," Ronan replied. "So I'll have sweet dreams."

"Hmm," Adam pretended to mull this over. "Once upon a time, there were two boys. One of the boys was an ugly duckling and the other was a beautiful swan."

"No," Ronan huffed. "They were both swans."

"Fine," Adam chuckled. "But one of the swans was definitely hotter than the other."

"Agreed," Ronan said.

"One day, the swans were laying on some grass together, joking around and making each other laugh, and one of the swans told the other swan that maybe he dreamt him, and the other swan knew he was joking, but thought maybe he was flirting with him, and it made him feel special and good inside like nothing else had ever made him feel before."

"Then what happened?" Ronan asked, his heart dipping into his stomach.

"They lived happily ever after."

Ronan scoffed bitterly. "Are you kidding? That's it?"

Adam laughed. "You were hoping for some hot, hot swan sex?"

"I need  _something_ to fuel my fantasies."

"Okay," Adam's voice went quieter, raspy in its near whisper. The inside of Ronan's ears tingled in pleasure. "That night, when I was trying to sleep, I couldn't stop thinking about it. You. The idea of you…liking me…it seemed ridiculous but possible at the same time. It made me too hard to sleep. I had to get myself off. And it felt really fucked up and dirty, thinking about you like that, like I was doing something without your permission, but…" Adam sighed at the memory. "It was so fucking hot."

Adam was his boyfriend and had been for some time now, this revelation should not have burned Ronan's skin from the inside like he was a blushing virgin, but it did.

"Now  _that's_ a good story."

"You really are sleepy," Adam murmured, taking note of the croak in his voice. "I wish I was falling asleep with you."

"Me too," Ronan whispered, like it was a painful secret.

He could hear the frown in Adam's voice. "Soon," he promised.

"Mm," was all Ronan could manage in response.

"I'm gonna hang up now," Adam said. "Because if I don't your phone'll die and you'll forget to charge it and it'll be another week before I hear from you again."

"No'won't," Ronan mumbled out, only half aware of what he was disagreeing to.

"Goodnight, Ronan." Adam said in a way that thoroughly implied the next sentiment he spoke explicitly anyway. "I love you."

"Love you," Ronan thought he might have said in reply, but he was more asleep than awake, and the next thing he knew it was morning and he realized with a profound sorrow he was not going to get to DM a senator a GIF of anal fisting from Declan's twitter account, because his brother had been right.

 _Sleep well?_  A text from him was already rubbing it in.

 **What's the big idea?** Ronan asked, refusing to answer this in any sort of direct fashion.

While Declan typed, Ronan noticed there were two messages on his side of the screen, messages sent after the organ joke but before the sleep well text. Apparently, in his half-conscious, dubiously altered state of mind, he'd sent to his brother,

**Thanks**

**love you**

*** * ***

Matthew was beginning to worry about his brother, Ronan. He'd been weird ever since he picked Matthew up from school that day, and though things had settled between the two of them, the strangeness of his behavior only seemed to increase as the days went on. He'd nearly started crying over the phone this morning when he told Matthew he wouldn't be able to come to his rugby game because he had that weird class thing he went to now. Matthew tried his best to console him by explaining that this worked out perfectly in his favor because his friends would be in attendance and he really didn't want his brother there with the possibility to embarrass him.

It wasn't like it was a real rugby game or team, anyway. It was just a community volunteer organized project. Local trouble boys were grouped roughly into two teams and they went at it in practice for a few hours every week, which was to be followed by one game between the two teams at the end of the program, to commemorate their hard work and dedication to teamwork. They weren't even going to keep an official score, since the environment was supposed to be a healthy and positive place. Whitt had slyly informed Matthew he would be keeping score privately from his spectator's position, Donovan had fistbumped him for luck, and Peter had brought a book along with him. Dressed in a fitted black coat and bright navy blue scarf, he looked like a book character himself. A mysterious, brooding vampire, perhaps. Except for the square tortoise shell glasses, which obscured the effect. Matthew didn't think he'd ever seen a vampire with glasses. He'd never seen Peter wear glasses, either. He must have been serious about the reading he was going to do instead of watching the game.

"Sports are a language I don't speak," Peter told him. "But go team go and all that."

"He couldn't kick a ball straight if his life depended on it," Donovan translated. "He's bitter."

"He couldn't do anything straight if his life depended on it," Whitt quipped, white cheeks flushed bright red in the cool October air. "He's gay."

The three of them laughed and Matthew wondered how this fact about Peter had slipped by him. Peter was the second gay person Matthew knew of, given his brother had been the first. Though he'd known both of these people for long periods of time before finding this out about them. He wondered how many more gay people he knew but did not  _know_ in this way. It distracted him throughout the entirety of the match. Whitt and Donovan could be gay, he thought as he caught the two of them standing up and cheering when Matthew had done something athletically impressive with the ball, scoring a fake point for his fake team. Or bisexual, like Adam. Why had Matthew never thought about this before? The boy from the fake opposing team who slammed him to the muddy ground with a gamely smile, maybe he was gay. Maybe Georgie Hayworth was gay and that's why he'd said those mean things about his brother, maybe he felt bad about himself for it, like his brother used to. The possibilities were endless.

Even much later, as they left their second stop on their costume quest, he continued to ruminate on the subject, watching Donovan and Whitt childishly shoving each other as they walked ahead of them back to Peter's car.

"Are they in love with each other?" Matthew asked, the words tumbling from his lips like water from an overfilled glass.

Peter made a disoriented noise, flicked his glasses from his coat pocket and slung them onto his face. He blinked owlishly, now focused on the scene Matthew was referring to.

"Probably," Peter sighed, as if this pained him to say in the same tone of voice he used to complain about his unfinished stack of homework. "Part of me wishes they'd just get on with it. Their incessant bickering has so long since staled, it's begun to mold."

"They'll figure it out eventually," Matthew said, he liked the way Peter talked sometimes, like he was reciting poetry, but that was just the way words came out of him naturally. He thought of what his father used to say about the ongoing war between his two older brothers. "Let them tire themselves out."

Peter snorted at that, extending one of his long, slender fingers to push his glasses up from where they'd slid down his impeccably straight nose.

Matthew squinted at him, suddenly aware of something.

"Are you near sighted and far sighted?"

"Just the near," Peter replied, absently unbothered by the question, which confirmed the niggling seed of suspicion in the soil of Matthew's gut, sprouting up from the earth of him into a tiny, closed bud of anticipation.

"So you  _were_  watching," Matthew deduced, an unthinking smile spreading his lips delicately apart. "You wore your glasses to see the game, not to read."

Peter turned to him, imparting him with an impish smile of his own. "Not the game," he said, before stuffing his hands in his pockets, shouldering his way past the unforgiving gust of wind that had kicked up in the early hours of the evening, his scarf billowing behind him and soft waves of black hair ruffled pleasantly, like from the invisible hand of an older brother. Despite the chill in the air, the inside of Matthew's chest grew warm, and the tiny rose bud like thing that had been growing inside him seemed to slowly unfurl itself, petal by petal, until it bloomed.

"I don't see why you two are complaining," Whitt seethed amicably at them as they all aimlessly rifled their way through the largest Goodwill in Henrietta. "Just go to the fucking pop-up Spirit store. They have tons of like togas and gladiator stuff."

"We're going for more of a subtle kind of accuracy," Peter informed them, to which Whitt scoffed.

When Matthew had him alone again, Whitt and Donovan disappeared and perhaps lost forever among the endless racks of clothing, he felt this was the best opportunity to ask, "So, what exactly am I supposed to be looking for?"

Peter fixed him with a resolute gaze.

"Matthew," he spoke his name gently, like it was something easily breakable. "Do you know who Achilles and Patroclus  _are_?"

"Yes," Matthew's brows furrowed, surprised by the question. "The Greek heroes of the Trojan war. My dad used to tell us the story at bedtime when we were little. It was one of Ronan's favorites. I liked it, too, but it made me sad."

"I'm just a little concerned," Peter spoke carefully, like he was avoiding stepping on broken glass. "Our interpretations are possibly in conflict. There's more than one version of the story, you know."

"No," Matthew replied, because he did not. "But does it matter?"

Peter shook his head, strangely dazed, like he was waking up from a dream. "No, I suppose it doesn't."

Peter's words left Matthew in a sour state. He didn't know what Peter meant by that or what Matthew had said to seemingly upset him in some way. Unable to shake this bothersome state of mind, as soon as he got home he spent the rest of the night downloading every copy of  _The Iliad_  he could find, along with some books that were based off it. He would familiarize himself with each one of these texts, making note of the differences in each translation, the way some authors favored language over storytelling and vice-versa. He became deliriously engrossed in this time-consuming activity, highlighting and cross-referencing passages that compared and contrasted more and more fascinatingly the deeper he dug through it all. He realized the version his father used to tell was some sort of blended up version of his own making, tailored specifically to appeal to his young sons. He scribbled down  _Niall Lynch_  among his list of translators, since this was technically another version he must take into account for his research. It was nearing dawn by the time he'd finished with the last of it, binding up his examinations and analysis and comparative notes into one big binder, tabbed and sourced to organizational perfection.

He dropped it down on Peter's desk the next day, as the rest of the class shuffled in, waiting for AP Lit to begin.

Peter began to leaf through it silently, skimming and jumping between sections in a way that tapped at the glass wall behind which Matthew's anxiety slept.

"Matthew," he said eventually, his voice oddly unlevel.

"You know, Whitt failed Algebra twice." said Matthew, not giving Peter the chance to interject and barreled on with his precisely chosen and rehearsed words before he lost the emotional momentum to speak them. "And you're barely holding onto your C in Pre-Cal. But that doesn't mean you're stupid. It just means you're bad at math. I think math is super easy, but for a lot of people, they just don't get it. That's what it's like for me. I just don't get a lot things the way other people do or I understand it but in a different way. I'm not Born Sexy Yesterday."

"Born Sexy Yesterday?" Peter repeated, one dark eyebrow raised.

"It's a trope used in male point of view fiction in which a sexualized female character is written with a child-like mentality, incapable of performing rudimentary tasks without the male protagonist's help. Leeloo, from  _The Fifth Element_ , is an example. Madison from  _Splash_."

"I get it," Peter said, rubbing at the skin between his eyebrows. "I don't think you're stupid, Matthew. And I'm not sexually attracted to children, so, I think we're safe on all fronts here."

"I'm saying, I don't like being treated like a baby."

Peter took these words in silent stride, the cleared his throat. "I think we may have gotten our wires crossed. The other day."

Matthew wasn't sure if he was supposed to speak now or if Peter was pausing on his way to say more. This was one of his biggest obstacles when it came to navigating the winding roads of communication. He was realizing of late people often must take his cautious silence as something else entirely, aloofness or rudeness. Well, he thought people should be more obvious about what their long pauses and breathy sighs were supposed to mean.

"I didn't mean to imply that you—I just didn't know if—" Peter started, then winced, rolled his shoulders up and then back down. "I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page, that's all. For the route we should take with the costumes."

"Oh," Matthew sat down in the seat next to him. "I mean, I don't care."

Peter smiled from the corner of his lips. "Does that mean if I pick something, you'll promise to wear it?"

Matthew shrugged, Donovan was doing the same for Whitt, so he supposed it was only fair.

Class had begun and Matthew was glad for the distraction from he and Peter's awkward altercation. He felt packed wrong in his own skin, like something just wasn't quite right between the two of them. Why had his mind gone to such a negative conclusion in the first place, that day after the game? Peter had just seemed so weirdly…offended? Like he was annoyed at the idea of Matthew not knowing as much about a story as him. Matthew had thought he was being condescending, because he could be that way sometimes. Whitt had told him not to take it personally. But if that's not the reason why Peter had been so curt with him, then what was? Matthew was missing something, he was sure of it. After class was over, he tried to take his binder of research back from Peter, claiming he needed it for costume preparation, but Peter was steadfast in his deflections, blocking all of Matthew's grabby maneuvers, insisting it was his to keep forever.

"I'll tell you this," he said, breathless and giggling as they twisted around each other, locked in a stalemate of bindersnatch. "You missed one."

That stopped Matthew mid-attack. "What?"

Peter used his confusion to slip out of the loose hold he'd been trapped in, shoving the binder into his locker and spinning it closed, out of Matthew's reach indefinitely.

"Missed one what?" Matthew huffed, his heart raging in his chest like he'd just wrestled a bear.

Peter didn't answer, just gave him another unidentifiable sort of smile as he trotted away, and Matthew was left with another puzzle on his hands. He shifted his book bag up onto his shoulder indignantly, roused and ready to demolish whatever challenge Peter had just laid out for him, and he would, just as soon as he figured out what it was.

*** * ***

It was the night before Halloween when Matthew finally understood. In all his research, he'd skipped over a novelization called  _The Song of Achille_ s. He remembered the title from his long night of work, it had been on a list of adaptations he'd been skimming through, referred to as 'literary junk food' and 'wholly inaccurate girlish fantasy'. Anyway, it seemed like it was some sort of friendship and adventure story about Achilles and Patroclus as children and Matthew had assumed it wasn't at all relevant. But he knew now, staring at the bright blue and gold cover, this was the piece he'd been missing. He downloaded it to his phone and began to devour it as the evening darkened into the middle of the night, and by the time he finished it, light blue sky was flooding into his window. It was a Saturday and he wasn't expected at Peter's until much later in the evening, so he allowed himself to sleep without restraint, plundering into a deep and heavy unconsciousness plagued with strange dreams that spiraled into something nightmareish that finally woke him with a jolt at 7:37 PM.

 _Shit_.

He was supposed to meet Peter at his house by 7:30. He scrambled for his phone, feverish and panicked, still half-stuck in the sweaty musk of sleep, and saw that he had no new messages. Peter had yet to notice his tardiness, it seemed. Seven minutes late wasn't a thing to worry about, but the next bus wasn't until 7:45 and it'd take a half hour at least to reach his destination. Shaking with anxiety and nightmare-fueled adrenaline he pounded on Ronan's door until his brother appeared, taking him in with a flush-faced look of alarm. He opened his mouth to speak but Matthew didn't have the time.

"I need you to drive me to Peter's house, like now, like right now please."

"What?" Ronan blinked at him. "Who's Peter?"

"My friend!" Matthew groaned, utterly confounded by this waste of time. "You took me to his house before, remember?"

"The kid you punched in the face?"

"I didn't punch him!" Matthew's voice raised an octave. "And he's my friend now and I was supposed to be at his house at 7:30 but I overslept and I can't take the bus because I'll be super late if I do so you need to take me now, please, Ronan, please!" He'd grabbed hold of his brother's forearms, rocking on his feet like a child.

"Okay, alright, Jesus!" Ronan shook free of him, disappearing into his room and saying to someone else, "No, I just have to take Matthew to his stupid friend's house or something, I don't know, I'll call you back in a little bit. Okay. Love you."

He reappeared with sweatpants pulled up to his hips and his keys in hand.

"Was that Adam?"

"Yes, and he told me to tell you you're a little shit."

Matthew bristled. "He did not!"

"Oh right, that was me." He gestured down the stairs. "Well come on."

Matthew reassessed his brother's earlier appearance, red-faced and only in his boxers, with the newfound information he'd been on the phone with Adam, and mentally recoiled. He just couldn't imagine what kind of pleasure Adam got out of doing sex stuff with his brother, but that was probably because as his brother Ronan was fundamentally unattractive to him.

Someone like Adam, though, as delicately handsome as a fairytale prince, who he imagined must be warm and soft to the touch, all perfect dark brown skin that always smelled like burning wood and tobacco, full cherry lips and long nose and thick eyebrows, cresting waves of inky black hair.

He stopped suddenly, shaking himself free from the strange picture his mind had put together that was definitely not Adam. Why was he thinking about Adam, anyway? This was all Ronan's fault, as usual. He bounced impatiently in the passenger seat for 17 torturous minutes, urging his brother to drive faster.

"Sure, let me just break the goddamn sound barrier." His brother sniped, annoyed still at having been interrupted from his sex stuff with Adam.

It was basically 8 o'clock by the time he was bounding up the front steps of Peter's house, panting as he rang the doorbell.

Footsteps sounded from above and when the door opened it was Peter who stood before him, and Matthew stupidly blurted out, "Oh, it's you."

Peter cocked an eyebrow. "Who were you expecting?"

"Your p—" Matthew corrected himself at the last minute. "Your mom or Jay."

"They are under strict orders to stay in their room and pretend they don't exist until we're gone," Peter informed him drily. "You're late."

"I know, I'm sorry," Matthew didn't know where to look first. He'd never seen so much of Peter's skin before. His midsection covered in a sleeveless off-white linen fabric, cinched at the waist with a leather rope belt, from which hung a small dagger. Skidding over where the fabric abruptly  _stopped_  at the tops of his thighs, he averted his gaze to the ground, taking in the strappy leather sandals attached to his feet instead. "I fell asleep."

Peter snorted softly, backing into his home to allow Matthew room to step inside. Matthew was still having trouble meeting his eyes, and so he turned to silently lead Matthew up the stairs to his bedroom. From this vantage point, it was extremely apparent just how short Peter's costume was and Matthew's eyes bulged, too shocked at the sight to look away quickly enough to not have seen.

"Are you wearing underwear?" He asked as they rounded the corner.

"Unfortunately not," Peter looked back at him with a rueful smirk. "Believe me, I tried. But these things just weren't meant to look good with underwear peeking through."

"Can I keep mine on?" Matthew asked, eyes widening in low grade terror.

Peter shrugged. "If you insist. You're lucky, you've got more to work with."

When he was ushered into the adjoining bathroom of Peter's room and Matthew saw what had been chosen for him, laid out like a 3D paper doll's outfit, he visibly relaxed. The skirt was a thick, pleated leather, a rustic burnished brown in color, and not quite as short as what was barely covering Peter's bottom half. As he fitted it snugly around his hips, he was pleased to find that his underwear could feasibly remain on his body without ruining the effect of the costume. The breastplate was like an uncomfortable torture version of a tanktop, gleaming bronze and fitted tightly to his own muscles as if it had been poured onto him and left there to harden. He snapped on the arm guards with a giddy satisfaction, the snug fit around his wrists a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing distraction. He tried and failed to wrangle what Ronan referred to as his Hobbit feet into the sandals and had to call to Peter for help. Peter flustered at the unfinished sight of him, accusing him of being as bad as Whitt as he instructed Matthew to sit down on the edge of the bathtub while he knelt down in front of him, wrangling him into the complicated shoes with a modicum of less struggle. Matthew stared down at the top of Peter's head, his dark waves had been transformed to a tighter, more wiry mess of curls, pinned down at each side with small gold leaves clipped neatly at his ears. Fascinated, Matthew reached down to touch one with the tip of his finger.

Peter looked up sharply, then smirked. "Not entirely accurate, I know. But I wanted to look at least  _kind of_  cute."

Eye contact made unavoidable, Matthew noticed the smudgy black lines that had been powdered under Peter's eyes, the amber flecks in his brown eyes all the more startling in contrast. He looked so much older, and Matthew curiously tried to pinpoint the reason for this, finally realizing Peter's usually smooth face was coated in a fine layer of stubbly black hair.

"Whoa," Matthew breathed. "Is that real?"

Peter chuckled, scratching at it sheepishly. "It was all I could do on such short notice. This is a week's worth of hard-earned manly growth you're looking at."

Matthew beamed, thoroughly impressed by Peter's, well, everything. He looked incredible, like he'd stepped right out of a painting, bold colors and soft brush strokes come to life.

"No, no," Peter commanded when Matthew tried to stand. "You're not done yet."

Matthew sat back down, trying to be patient, but he felt strange and pulled tight in this costume and being still only heightened the disorienting sensation. Peter returned shaking a tube in his right hand, before popping open the cap of it and squirting something into his palm.

"What is that?"

"Fenty Body Lava," Peter informed him, smearing the gritty liquid over the tops of his exposed shoulders. "Whitt insisted." He then applied it to the tops of Matthew's cheeks, down the bridge of his nose, and across his forehead. When he finally allowed Matthew to stand and look at himself, he was no less than dazzled by the effect, his skin glistening like gold wherever the light hit the parts Peter had placed the stuff.

"Cool!" Matthew breathed, twisting his shoulders this way and that. Peter had to pry him away from the mirror, grumbling that he was supposed to be Achilles, not Narcissus.

"We're not done yet?" Matthew whined, as they traipsed loudly down the stairs, Peter claiming he needed to get 'the rest of the stuff' before they could go.

"Hardly," Peter scoffed pleasantly at him. He was in a chipper mood. Smiling a lot more than usual. He had such a nice smile, Matthew was glad for this, and thought he ought to make a note of how to make him do it more often.

Peter turned from where they stood in front of the living room coat closet, brandishing a dark bronze helmet, two almond shaped eye holes sloping down to slits at the bottom.

"How am I supposed to wear that?" Matthew eyed the thing warily.

"Like this," Peter said, plonking it down over the top of Matthew's head. Immediately, panic overtook him. He could barely see out of it, and it was too tight against the skin of his face.

"Um," he felt his chest constrict, unsure how to proceed, how to express his discomfort. "I don't like this."

"It's perfect!" Peter insisted, not understanding.

Matthew's voice shook. "Can I take it off please?"

This time Peter caught hold of what Matthew was trying to say and quickly yanked it off, himself.

"Sorry," he blinked uncertainly at Matthew. "Are you okay?"

Matthew shook his head, eyes squeezed shut, trying to breathe through the panic like the counselor had talked to him about.

"Um," Peter was at a mournful loss. "Do you want to sit down?"

 _Treasure_ , Matthew thought purposefully, breathing slowly into his nose and then blowing out of his mouth.  _Table, texture, test,_   _time, turn, trial, train, true…_

He opened his eyes, blinked them slowly at Peter, his heart slowed down by half by the time he got to  _tournament_. "I'm okay."

"I'm sorry," Peter said again. "I should have asked first, I just wasn't thinking—"

Matthew cut him off with another shake of his head. "You didn't do anything wrong. I just didn't like it."

Peter frowned down at the helmet in his hands, it was a beautiful and awesome looking and Matthew struggled to figure out a way to fix this.

"I could just carry it," he suggested weakly.

"Well, you kind of have other things to carry," Peter mused, digging back into the closet to pull out a large sword and round shield. He measured these three items between them with his eyes, before tossing the shield and sword back into the closet and handing Matthew the helmet.

"This is the most important," he nodded. "Carrying the others around a party probably wouldn't be much fun for you, anyway. I knew we'd have to make a practicality cut somewhere." He sighed, wistful. Then, abruptly, as if he'd just remembered, turned back to pluck one last thing from the bottom of the closet and attach it to his other dagger-free hip. It was a small silver instrument with strings.

"Oh," Matthew realized aloud. "A lyre. Like in the book."

Peter looked up at him, eyes wide with mischief. "You read it?"

"I did."

"And?"

"It was…" Having fallen asleep almost directly after finishing it, the memories of the story mixed in with his dreams, muddying themselves into an abstract picture. "Weird."

Peter scoffed, shook his head once, then sighed. "Alas."

"I don't remember much about it," Matthew admitted, following as Peter made his way out of the front door. "Or how it was so very different from the others. I mean, aside from the writing style and point-of-view, I suppose."

"Enigmatic as always," was all Peter said in response, ushering Matthew into the passenger seat of his sleek black Mercedes. The interior was all black too, when the dashboard displays lit up, it felt like being inside a spaceship. The newest Ariana Grande album began to blast unapologetically from the car's booming stereo as Peter pulled out into the street. Matthew bopped his head along silently to the music, feeling so comfortable and settled in Peter's soft seated and nice smelling car he was almost sad by the time Peter pulled up to Whitt's house, knowing the quiet easy peace he and Peter had been sharing would be over as soon as the other boys entered the car.

"Did either of them tell you what they decided on?" Peter asked as he sent out a text to announce their arrival.

Matthew shook his head, just as curious as Peter was to see what chaos an unrestrained Thomas Whittaker had wrought. When the devil himself appeared, it was hard to tell in the dark, but he didn't look to be wearing any sort of costume at all, nor did Donovan, as he stomped recklessly behind him until the two boys slammed themselves into the backseat of Peter's car, flicking on the light and gasping at what they saw.

"Holy shit!" Whitt cupped his face with his hands. "You guys look amazing!"

"I feel like I'm hallucinating," Donovan grinned loosely at them, something a little strange about his demeanor.

"I assume you've had a little pregame for two," Peter snorted from the driver's seat. He slid his eyes to Matthew's. "They're already drunk."

"Tipsy!" Whitt corrected, slapping his hands down emphatically on the back of Matthew's headrest. "Donovan was getting last minute cold feet. It was the only way I could get him into his costume."

Matthew looked back and forth between the two of them, trying to figure out what was costume-like about ordinary looking clothes.

Donovan caught his gaze and smirked viciously at him. "Don't you recognize your own brother, Lynch?"

Matthew blinked, taking in the sight of Donovan's ensemble with new eyes. He wore a ribbed white tanktop under a beat-up leather jacket, dark slimfit jeans and scuffed black combat boots. Any of one these items could have been plausibly plucked from Ronan's closet.

"You can't be serious," said Peter, looking frantically to Matthew and then back to Donovan and Whitt. "That's not funny. A real person isn't a costume."

"It's not a joke!" Whitt retorted hotly, flinging his arms as he spoke. "They're the brangelina of the tri-state area, practically celebrities. It's fair game."

"Wait," Peter gaped at Whitt. "You mean you're supposed to be—"

"Adam Parrish, in the flesh." Whitt preened, like he was performing for an audience.

"How is that an Adam costume?" Matthew asked of him. Whitt's hair was much too dark and skin too pale to look like Adam.

Whitt tugged on the threadbare t-shirt he wore. Matthew saw now that the name of the university Adam was now attending had been written in block letters across it in sharpie. "I bought this entire outfit at Goodwill."

Donovan snickered wickedly, and Matthew thought he did look a little like Ronan, then.

"Jesus," Peter pinched the skin between his eyebrows. "People are going to think you're making fun of them, you know that, right? I literally refuse to be seen with you."

"It's the  _Hawthorne_  Halloween party," Whitt drawled, unaffected by Peter's cold disapproval. "The ratio is gonna be 70 to 30 gay, anyway. We'll fit right in."

Peter slumped back into his seat, looking forlornly ahead of him, like he didn't know what to do next. Before the silence in the car could stretch to a length too uncomfortable to bear, Matthew said, "I think it's funny."

Peter turned to look at him, the gold leaves in his hair flashing in the light, and fixed him with a deeply assessing gaze. Matthew wasn't sure what he was attempting to silently communicate to him, so he simply shrugged, and Peter restarted the car, and they were off.

*** * ***

The Hawthorne mansion was huge, for lack of a better term. It was one of the oldest buildings in Henrietta, technically on the outskirts of town, but Henrietta claimed it proudly, anyway. Much of the original architecture was still in tact with a sprawling mass of classically modern add-ons that gave it an eerily timeless quality. Even lit up and teeming with laughing and shrieking partygoers, Matthew shivered. It looked haunted.

Some older boys Matthew didn't recognize greeted them immediately as they trooped up the steps like a ragtag anachronistic army. They understood Whitt and Donovan's costumes instantly and cackled with appreciative laughter. They said something about some movie to Matthew, he didn't know what they were talking about. He looked to Peter for help, who took him by one of his armguards and gently pulled him away.

"Lost causes," He shook his head, gesturing back to Whitt and Donovan. "I'm sorry about the costumes. It's so stupid."

Matthew shrugged again, watching the two of them performatively submerge into their characters, Donovan slinging his arm posessively around Whitt's shoulders while Whitt rolled his eyes adoringly at him.

"I mean, it's pretty accurate."

Peter scoffed a laugh, then looked away. Matthew was unsure if he was still upset or lost in thought or waiting for Matthew to say something else. Peter was even harder to read than most people, who were well hard enough. There was something overwhelming about it, the possibility of getting it wrong, that squeezed Matthew's throat tight in a way it didn't with anyone else. He was a little bit afraid of Peter, he realized, though he'd given him no real reason to be. He wasn't the type to yell or threaten or be in any way cruel. The fear wasn't of some degrading repercussion or punishment, it was…something else.

"You look so nice," he finally said, because he said to say something. Peter turned back toward him, shrugging off the compliment with a wave of his hand.

"I'm glad you're not wearing the helmet," Peter said decisively. "It'd be such a shame to hide that hair." He reached his hand up, as if to touch it, then retracted it quickly. "Anyway, you want to go inside?"

A group of kids running by them screeched much too close to his ear and he nodded, wishing he would have thought to bring his headphones, though that probably would have ruined the costume, so it didn't matter anyway.

It was darker than Matthew had expected inside the Hawthorne mansion, the only lights were strings that had been wrapped around the floors and bannister, and Matthew instinctively reached for Peter's arm, all at once afraid he would be lost and never found if the two of them lost sight of each other.

Peter led him to a large living room, lined with couches pushed up against the walls and open in the center, where people were spinning and swaying to the low pumping music coming from the large speakers fixed above them.

"Is this too much?" Peter had moved very close to say this as lowly as he could into Matthew's ear. For a second Matthew thought he meant the proximity of their bodies, as his friends had all come to learn he was finicky about personal space, and Matthew shook his head no, because he wanted Peter as close as possible right now, the heat of his body a calming presence among the  _muchness_  surrounding him. He realized then Peter  _had_  meant the surrounding muchness and not the other thing, because now he was dragging him into the eye of the storm, introducing him to a group of people from some other school, he knew them through debate competitions, and they all gawped at Matthew like he was an alien who'd just crashed landed onto their planet. He gawped back, feeling much the same.

"You look so fucking cute!" One of the girls, dressed in some kind of superhero costume that looked like a ladybug, yelped at Peter, reaching forward to paw at his barely there beard. "Oh my god. You actually did it. I'm  _screaming_."

He batted her hand away, but smirked in playful delight.

"Did you order him from a catalogue or what?" A tall skinny guy dressed as the Fourth Doctor asked, gesturing toward Matthew.

"Shut _up_ ," Peter hissed, clutching the back of his neck. "Guys, this is Matthew, my stunning Achilles for the evening."

"Nice you meet you, Peter's hot date Matthew!" The ladybug girl extended her hand for him to shake.

"Kelsey," Peter grunted her name in chagrined warning. To Matthew he said, "Ignore them."

Matthew excelled at this task, remaining silent as the group and Peter exchanged pleasantries, gossip, and other things Matthew had no interest in. At one point he was offered a shot, and he clinked it together with Peter and the rest of them and downed it. His face contorted in immediate pain, the taste hot and bitter and unbearable. He felt unwieldy, out of place, like he had no center of balance and he might fall to the floor if not for his bruising grip on Peter's forearm. He tried to distract himself by looking around, counting the tiny bulbs of stringed lights until they blurred together and he had to blink them back into focus.

"You're so quiet!" Ladybug Kelsey shouted over the music, making Matthew wince.

Everyone turned to Matthew, like he was expected to say something now. He blinked at Peter, confused and discomforted, panic rising in his stomach like pluming smoke.

"Strong and silent type," Peter explained with an easy smile, and the group tittered with laughter, which Matthew didn't very much care for. He just didn't know what he was supposed to say to these people he didn't know, who were too loud and too close and too demanding. In an impulsive moment of decision, he said to Peter,

"Hey, I'll be back."

Peter tilted his head at him, the gold leaves in his hair glittering prettily in the low light. He looked dark and unreal, like something from a dream. "Where are you going?"

"Fresh air," he said, and Peter frowned. He looked down at Matthew's hand on his arm, like he'd only just noticed it was there.

"I'll come with you."

Matthew shook his head, not wanting to be the cause of any disorder. "It's alright, you stay with your friends."

Peter's dark eyes were penetrating, like he was trying to sound out a foreign language in his head. "I—"

"Peter," Ladybug Kelsey pulled him to her side, elongating the vowels of his name. "Don't be clingy. It's unbecoming." She winked at Matthew, and he decided he disliked her the least of all who were present. Matthew slid away from them and kept his eyes down, focusing on the shiny wood panels of the floor and the string lights as he weaved through the crowd, itching to be out in the open air again, when he smacked hard into a solid thing and looked up, startled, to see a girl stumbling to catch herself in front of him.

"Oh. Sorry." He said, dazed, and moved to step around her when she righted herself and gaped at him with a delighted open smile.

"Oh, it's you, Achilles." She extended one long arm and tapped him on the nose with her finger. "You're in big trouble, mister."

"I am?" He wondered aloud, and she placed her hands sternly on her hips.

"The Gods are very angry with you," she confirmed with a pert nod. "But you know you're my favorite, so I can't stay mad at you for too long."

She was tall, taller than he was, dressed in an iridescent gauzy dress that was sort of in the same style of Peter's costume, but hers was a shiny and cheap material. Her face was narrow and bird-like, coated in a heavy layer of rougey dark makeup, a frizzy halo of bright blonde hair curling around her ears. He realized she was teasing him, making a joke out of their somewhat similar costumes, and grinned.

"Which Goddess are you?" he asked. "Just so I know who to thank."

She spun around in a lazy circle, smiling impishly as she did so. "The package just said 'Grecian Goddess', so I think that means I could be any of them."

"Well, as long as I have your favor."

She beamed at him. "Of course. But you must dance with me now or I  _will_  have to curse you forever and ever."

Matthew had never liked anyone so instantly. "That sounds reasonable." He took her hand graciously and let her lead him to an open spot of the dance floor. The song was a heavy beating fast paced pop song, one he recognized from the radio, and he twirled Goddess Girl effortlessly around in circles, spinning himself around her like they were two dizzy children at the playground.

"What's your name?" he asked when she was opportunely pressed up against him.

"Elizabeth Hawthorne," she breathed through her bright white teeth, and Matthew just adored her. She smelled like fresh fruit and flowers and had a name like a dead movie star. "And you?"

"Matthew Lynch," he supplied humbly. She spun away from him.

"Matthew Lynch!" She glared at him like he'd been keeping a secret she had the right to know. "You do deserve to wear that armor." She spun back into him and they swayed and bounced close together in time to the music. "I heard about what you did to those nasty boys. Well done."

Matthew felt himself blush. "They were talking shit about my brother. I had to."

She nodded encouragingly. "It's what they deserved. They used to bully Bash, too, and justice has finally been served. The Goddess of War approves."

"Bash?" Matthew asked.

"My brother," she sighed when she said it, like she loved him very much, and Matthew understood this intimately. "Sebastian Hawthorne, he used to play tennis with Ronan."

"Oh!" Matthew realized something very important very belatedly. "This is your house."

She giggled and it sounded like wind chimes, she reminded him of his mother.

"He's over there sulking," she flicked her head over to one of the couches tucked away in corner. "Bad breakup."

"Oh," Matthew said again, unsure of what to say next. "That sucks."

"Shall we go cheer him up?" she tugged at his wrists and he let her, looking around wildly to catch sight of Peter or Whitt or Donovan or anyone else, and saw nothing but unfamiliar faces. "One last favor for your Goddess, and then I'll release you."

"Go away, Lizzie." the boy that was now sandwiched inbetween Elizabeth and Matthew on the couch spat bitterly at his sister. Matthew recognized him from one of Ronan's tennis games now. He looked much like his sister, but all dark where she was light. The brooding moon to her glowing sun.

"Come now," Elizabeth leaned into him, grabbing three drinks from a nearby tray and passing one to Sebastian and then to Matthew, keeping one for herself. "The Goddess of Love is here to ease your pain."

"I though you were Athena," Matthew reminded her. Sebastian snorted.

Elizabeth huffed at them. "I transform into whomever I need to be. I'm Aphrodite now."

"Aphrodite wouldn't have roots showing," Sebastian remarked coldly. Elizabeth smacked his arm. She convinced them to meet their drinks together and then down them, as Matthew had done before with Peter and his group, but this was a wholly different experience. He liked Elizabeth and he was no stranger to grumpy older brothers, he felt at ease here.

"Achilles has come to grace you with his presence," she nudged Sebastian's shoulder. "The vanquishing hero himself, slayer of Jensens and Hayworths abound."

Sebastian turned to him sharply, giving him an up and down glance. "You're Lynch's little brother?"

Matthew nodded, familiar with this title.

"Huh," Sebastian said. "He still with Parrish?"

Matthew nodded again.

Sebastian reached for the drink he'd already had in front of him, taking a long swallow. "Ronan Lynch can keep a guy and I can't. It's time to end my pitiful existence for good."

Elizabeth growled under her breath, rolling her eyes animatedly. "Bash, please! Colton was a heinous goblin thing. You can do so much better."

Sebastian huffed indifferently, but Elizabeth wasn't discouraged by his dour demeanor.

"I, Mighty Aphrodite, hereby make a proclamation!" She twirled gracelessly to her feet, wobbling before righting herself and addressing her brother with a steely look of determination. "Achilles as my witness, you, Sebastian Hawthorne, are being gifted with a perfect boy to love you forever and ever. He will be a beautiful, golden-skinned Greek hero, except the hipster version of whatever that is, and he will have to do your laundry for you since you don't know how, and cook your meals since you can't do that either, but he will be so happy to do so, because you are his beloved and he is yours, forever and ever. So be it!" She clapped her hands together like a smack of thunder and tumbled down into her brother's lap.

"So where's this perfect boy, then?"

Elizabeth balked, tapping his nose the same way she'd done to Matthew earlier. "I can't do everything for you, Sebastian. You'll just have to find him yourself."

"You're a mess," he shook his head at her, but he was smiling. Feeling sufficiently steadied and right about the head again, Matthew leaned in to tell Elizabeth he needed to find Peter since he'd told him he was coming back and it had been quite awhile since then.

"What does he look like?" Elizabeth was renewed with energy, linking her arm with Matthew's and guiding him through the confounding mass of people. "I will take you to him."

"He's Patroclus," Matthew explained and Elizabeth stopped suddenly, Matthew smacking into the back of her. He maneuvered around her to see what she was seeing and his eyes fell on the very Patroclus he was looking for, leaning against a wall with a drink in his hands, talking closely to someone Matthew didn't recognize, someone not from the group from before. It was a boy, uncostumed as far as Matthew could tell, and Peter was laughing at something he was saying, and the boy reached out to touch one of the gold leaves in Peter's hair. Matthew's stomach lurched, a sudden and disorienting feeling, confusing and ice cold and horrible all at once.

"That's him," Matthew said and Elizabeth looked behind her shoulder at him.

"Worry not, dear Achilles. The Goddess of Love will intervene." She stalked forward at a purposefully brisk pace, and Mathew could do nothing but follow her as she stopped to pick up a discarded drink from a table and quickened her stride to a sloppy sort of stumble until she smashed right into the unknown boy, spilling her drink all down the front of his shirt.

"Oh my god, I am, like, soooo sorry," she slurred her words affectedly, hanging onto him by the shoulders, and the boy was utterly at a loss of what to do with her. She mumbled something about feeling sick and made a jolting motion with her body, covering her mouth with her hand, as if she was going to vomit. He was saying something about water and she was frantically nodding and he was gone, darting eagerly toward the kitchen at the other end of the house. Elizabeth composed herself and turned to Peter with a dazzling smile.

"Brave Patroclus," she bowed her head graciously at him. "I have come to return what's yours."

*** * ***

"So," Peter said, once they were alone again. "Lizzie Hawthorne, huh?"

Elizabeth had excused herself to continue tending to her brother, but not before granting Matthew with a sweet kiss to his shiny forehead. Matthew didn't like the tone of Peter's voice. Did he not know how amazing Elizabeth was?

"She's super nice," he said. "And funny."

"I saw you dancing with her," Peter said, and Matthew nodded.

"She's a freshman," said Peter, and Matthew didn't know what that had to do with anything.

"She's cool," he insisted, anyway. "I was freaking out and she calmed me down."

Peter nodded once, curtly.

"Are you mad at me?" Matthew asked, the alcohol in his system seeming to hit him all at once, and any thought that came to his mind would now be spoken aloud.

Peter looked shocked by the question. "No. Why would I be mad at you?"

Matthew shrugged. "I don't know. That's why I'm asking."

"Why were you freaking out?" Peter asked, instead of answering.

"I just felt uncomfortable," Matthew said. "I don't think your friends liked me very much."

"Well," Peter scoffed mirthfully at that. "They didn't think you liked them, either. You hardly said two words to them."

Matthew scrunched up his face, trying to understand what was happening. Was Peter mad because Matthew had been rude to his friends? If that was the case, why wouldn't he just say that?

"I'm—sorry," Matthew apologized stiltedly, unsure of what exactly he was apologizing for, but attempting to be nonetheless genuine. "I didn't know what to say. It was scary."

Peter's face was a complicated picture of twitching muscles, like his mind was flipping through emotions like television channels, until it settled on an unreadable blank slate.

"I need to find a bathroom," he said, startling Matthew with this abrupt shift of topic.

"Are you sick?" he asked, reaching out instinctively. "Do you need help?"

Peter shook him off, insisting he was fine, and left Matthew standing there.

What had just happened?

His mind spun itself dizzy trying to work it out, he wished people would just say what they mean, it would make life so much easier. How had things gotten so weird tonight? He came to this party with his friends, now Whitt and Donovan were nowhere to be found, and the only time he'd spent with Peter had been when he shoved him in front of a bunch of strangers and wanted him to, what? Impress them? Make them like him? Maybe Matthew could have been better at that if Peter had just said that's what he wanted from him. And now he was mad at him and Matthew didn't know how to fix it and he'd been talking to that other boy and somehow that felt like some kind of punishment that twisted in Matthew's ribs like a knife and Matthew didn't know how to fix it and the music was way too loud and the room was spinning and Matthew closed his eyes and tried to breathe but his heart was beating too fast, too fast, it hurt and it wouldn't stop and Peter was mad at him and Whitt and Donovan were gone and he looked around and didn't see Elizabeth or her brother anywhere and suddenly he was surrounded by nothing but strange faces in a strange place and everything was too close and too loud and too close and too loud and the lights on the floor burned his eyes and he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe, he had to get out of here but his body wouldn't move and the room was still spinning too fast for him to see and—

"Hey Matty, you okay?"

He would have cried if his throat had been able to make noise, but it was sealed shut like he'd swallowed a bottle of glue, he choked out a shuddering breath, trying to talk, trying to remember how to. His hands were shaking when Whitt took them in his.

"Come on," he said, pulling Matthew away from the spot he was frozen in, "You're okay. I've got you." He repeated this over and over until they were out of the house and Whitt led him to the top of the steps to sit down and instructed him to breathe in his nose, count to four, then breathe out of his mouth. Matthew struggled to obey these commands, tears springing in his eyes and his body still shivering from the shock of what was happening to him. Loud footsteps pounded up the steps and came to a rushed halt beside them.

"What's going on?" That was Donovan's voice, sharp and alarmed, and Whitt gripped Matthew's wrists tighter.

"I don't know," he said. "Go find Peter."

"You're okay," Whitt told Matthew gently. "Just keep breathing. Do it with me. In—1,2,3,4—and out. "

Matthew tried, he really did, with all his might, and eventually he managed to gulp down a few lungfuls of fresh night air and his throat slowly loosened and the words filled his mouth and formed around his lips and he said, "Tennis."

"Tennis?" Whitt repeated, a question in his voice.

"Trade," Matthew whispered, closing his eyes and breathing deep. "Total, trend, track, truck, trick, t…" the words escaped him and his stomach wrenched tight once more.

"Traffic," Whitt said to him, squeezing his wrists with emphasis. "Trolley, trustfund, treaty—"

"Trouble," Matthew gasped, the panic simmering and the words flowing through his brain and out of his mouth again.

"Travel," said Whiit.

"Tragedy," said Matthew.

Donovan and Peter were upon them, and Whitt paid them no mind, continuing to feed Matthew the words when they failed him.

Donovan sat down in front of him, next to Whitt.

"Telephone," he said.

Peter's familiar scent settled at his side, the warmth of his body a welcome comfort in the chill of the night around them.

"Tapestry," he said.

"Talented," said Matthew.

"Talisman," said Whitt.

"Turnstile," said Donovan.

Round and round they went, until Matthew insides churned slower and slower until they stilled completely.

He opened his eyes. Whitt was still holding his wrists. He breathed in, held it, breathed out.

"I'm okay."

"What happened?" Whitt's eyes were glassy, his mouth turned uncharacteristically downward.

Matthew took another deep breath, shook his head. "I just don't feel good."

"Too much to drink?" Donovan asked, like he was suggesting a restaurant. "I'll get you some water."

Matthew closed his eyes again. "I want to go home."

Whitt started to say something but Peter cut him off.

"I'll take him."

Donovan eyed him sternly. "You okay to drive?"

Peter stood up. "I wouldn't offer if I wasn't. Come on, Whitt. Matthew. Let's all walk to my car."

All three boys began to escort Matthew down the massive steps, Whitt holding his wrists, stills, taking each step backwards as they descended.

"Wait," Matthew realized just as they made it to the bottom, a flicker of panic returning to burn in his chest. "The helmet. I forgot. The helmet."

"It's chill," said Donovan, holding it up like a trophy and handing it to Matthew. "I got it."

Matthew's eyes blurred with tears. "Sorry," he sniffed, extracting his wrist from Whitt's grip and taking the helmet from Donovan. "Thank you."

"It's all good, man," Donovan pat him gently on the back as Whitt opened Peter's car door and Donovan nudged him down into the passenger seat.

"Feel better," Whitt smiled at him, Matthew returned it, weakly.

"Here," said Peter, as they peeled away into the night, everything blurry and seeming to move in a shaky slow motion. A cold weight dropped into Matthew's lap. Matthew looked down to see Peter's phone, lit up like a portal to another world. "You pick the music."

*** * ***

Peter had been lying, but only a little bit. Under normal circumstances, he was definitely not okay to drive. The cold water he'd splashed on his face in the bathroom had only seemed to remind him how hot and dizzy and delusional he felt. But this was not a normal circumstance, this was a crisis situation, and so Peter put all of his faith in mind over matter, and convinced himself he was as sober as an old lady in church, and drove with both hands fixed firmly on the wheel, eyes open as wide as his anatomy would allow.

"I'm sorry," Matthew's voice croaked from the passenger seat. "I ruined your night."

Guilt gnawed at Peter's intestines like flesh eating bacteria.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Matthew." The feel of his name on Peter's tongue a private form of self-flagellation. "You didn't ruin anything."

"I didn't mean to be rude to your friends," Matthew continued, each misunderstood word a needle sinking slowly into Peter's gut. "I'm not good at meeting new people sometimes. Tell them I'm sorry."

Peter shook his head, which was a bad idea as the road blurred in front of him, and be blinked himself back into alertness. "They were the ones being rude," he told Matthew, mortification burning the back of his neck. "And they're not really my friends, so who cares what they think."

"Then why did you want me to talk to them?" Matthew asked him.

"I was trying to show off," Peter admitted with a bitter scoff, the alcohol sloshing around his too empty stomach making him dangerously honest. "And I made myself look like an idiot." He laughed, shrugging his shoulders. "Hubris, eh?"

"So," Matthew spoke after a few tense beats of silence. "You're really not mad at me?"

"No," Peter said. "I'm not."

Matthew's whole body shifted in the seat beside him, relaxing into it, and Peter's insides followed suit. Matthew picked up Peter's phone, finally taking up his earlier offer and scrolled through the Spotify app for a few moments before picking a song. He laid his head back against the seat, eyes closed, a soft smile on his face.

Peter tried his very hardest not to be a crazy person and think there was anything subliminal about the song he'd chosen. But the slow pumping sensual beat of  _Something About Us_ by Daft Punk slid traitorously between his legs, making his skin uncomfortably warm. He called forth the image of Matthew spinning Lizzie Hawthorne into his chest and that was as good a cold shower he could give himself on the spot.

"Are you going back to the party?" Matthew asked, unbuckling his seatbelt, as he sat parked in front of the Lynch barn house, his headlights casting it in stark horror movie lighting.

"Eh. Probably not." Peter shrugged. "I don't feel all that great either. I think I need to take a breather before I even drive myself home."

"Oh," Matthew perked up at this. "You could come inside."

Of all the bad ideas, but Peter's mind was stuck somewhere between raging masochism and fear of dying behind the wheel, so he unbuckled his own seatbelt, cut the engine of his car, and followed Matthew Lynch into the dark.

Stepping into The Lynch House was unsettlingly surreal. For all he knew about the infamous local family, he was surprised to find the inside of their house achingly ordinary, there were initialed knicks on one of the doorways, denoting the changing heights of the three boys who grew up here. Matthew silently led Peter up the creaky wooden stairs and Peter felt some flicker of primal fear of waking parents, before remembering that Matthew's parents were dead, and all at once the house felt like something out of a ghost story again.

Matthew's room was another surprise, immaculately clean and sparse. Matthew was such a loud, colorful presence, his room did not reflect this in the way Peter had imagined it. There was a nondescript bed, a desk with a laptop and succulent plant on it, a mostly empty book shelf, a record player, a  _Godfather II_ poster. All of these things seemed like they'd been plucked from separate bedrooms and put together into one to make some kind of abstract art statement.

Speaking of art, Peter's eyes landed on a tacked up drawing that hung directly over Matthew's bed, positioned oddly low and tucked in the corner, and as if to demonstrate the purpose for this, Matthew rolled into his bed, his head turning toward it, as if this was he fell asleep looking at.

"This is my most prized possession," Matthew informed him proudly, rolling away so he could give Peter a better look at it.

Peter had seen it before, though his body moved closer anyway, as if he needed to get a closer look. It was the same as it always had been, though the pulsing ache he used to feel as he stared at it every day was no longer the forefront of his mind, instead it was the way the once crisp signature at the bottom had gone soft and muddy, as if someone had swiped their fingers over it.

"Matthew," Peter said slowly, his whole world tilting on its axis. "Are you in love with your brother's boyfriend?"

Matthew laughed, a high pitched caw of a sound. "No!" He turned back to the drawing, his whole face softening in some far away fondness. He reached out, stroking the curve of Adam's bicep gingerly. "I'm in love with  _this_."

Peter's throat went dry. He was still moving closer, somehow, his brain detached from his body, watching himself from above as if in a lucid dream.

Matthew turned to him. "How'd you know this was a drawing of Adam?"

"Because I drew it," Peter answered simply, reaching out to run his fingers over the ruined signature himself. "P. M. Priyabrata Mirchandani, that's me. Peter if you're nasty."

For what felt like such an incredibly large revelation, Matthew Lynch didn't very much react to this. He turned back to the drawing, a thoughtful look etched onto his face.

"Are you in love with Adam?" he asked.

Peter scoffed. "I thought I was, once. Your brother beat me to the punch. Literally and figuratively."

That drew Matthew's attention away from his reverential admiration of Peter's boyish infatuation. "Huh?"

"Adam's dad." Peter said, feeling suddenly awkward.

"Oh." Matthew slid down from his bed to sit on the floor in front of it. "Yeah."

Peter sat down beside him.

Matthew sighed. "Isn't it strange how the worst parents are the ones that get to live?"

The question rattled around Peter like someone had dropped a wasp into his ribcage. He'd thought the same thing, many times. Cruelly, when he heard a classmate complain about their father's harsh rules, their uncaring punishments. Why couldn't it have been their father and not his? Matthew had lost both his parents. Peter felt, for the first time in his life since his father left this world, uncomfortably privileged.

"I'm sorry about your parents," he said, his voice coming out raspy and useless. "It's not fair at all. It just fucking sucks."

Matthew leaned back against the side of his bed. "It's hard to figure out how I feel about it."

"I know what you mean," Peter said.

"I wasn't really close with my dad," Matthew went on, voice cool and casual. "So I don't really miss him. Not like I miss my mom."

Peter didn't know how to respond to that. Grief was such a complicated beast of a thing. He had no room to judge how anyone else worked their way through it, though it still perplexed him, to be presented with the reality of a grief out of his.

"What was your mom like," Peter found himself asking. "After your dad died?"

Matthew sighed again, eyes downcast. "She was gone. She came back for a little bit. But then she died."

Another painful shot of reality administered itself directly into Peter's veins. He thought of his own mother, of course. She was alive and happy and he should be much more grateful than that than he was. In fact, her happiness repulsed him. How could she just replace his father like that? With his fucking brother, no less? Jay and his father had been so close. How did either of them sleep at night?

Then again, the thought of his mother being so crippled by her grief that she withered into nothing, followed her husband into death, frightened him so viscerally he felt his hands begin to shake. That was the whole reason Uncle Jay had moved in in the first place. His mother didn't get out of bed for months. If he hadn't done what he did, what would have become of his mother? Would she still even be here?

The breath that sucked itself sharply into his lungs surprised him and Matthew turned to him, eyeing him curiously. He leaned into his space, slowly, reaching forward to touch one of the gold leaf clips pinned at his ears.

"It's my fault my dad died," he blurted out. He'd never said it out loud before. Now that he had, it didn't feel as painful as he'd expected it to. It was just a fact, like any other, after all.

Matthew leaned back. "What do you mean?"

"He called me," Peter said, he did not feel like he was going to cry, perhaps the alcohol had numbed him enough to allow him this mercy. "The morning he died. He was on a business trip. It was summer, the ringing woke me up, I was annoyed. I ignored it and went back to sleep. My mom got the call late that night. He'd killed himself in his hotel room."

Matthew was quiet for a long time.

"That's not your fault, Peter."

"If I'd just answered the phone," Peter said, and now he did feel like crying, but he managed to restrain himself. He sucked in another sharp, steadying breath. "Well, who knows."

Matthew got another far away look in his eyes, like he was thinking of something else entirely, and when he came back from wherever it was he'd gone, he closed the distance between himself and Peter, wrapping him gently in his arms. The breastplate clunked awkwardly between them, uncomfortably digging into both their chests, but they stayed there like that for a long time, chins tucked over each other's shoulders. Matthew Lynch smelled like fresh cut grass and the damp muggy air after a spring shower of rain. Peter tried to remember what life was like before this, before he knew what this felt like, sitting on the floor of Matthew Lynch's bedroom, tightly tucked inside his big arms. It was like all those memories had been shoved behind a wall of frosted glass. He could only make out the vague shapes of them, removed from himself as if he was spying on someone else.

"You're really not what I was expecting," he murmured, definitely too drunk and too emotionally unstable to be alone with a beautiful boy in his bedroom right now.

"What were you expecting?" Matthew asked, open and eager to hear the truth, as always.

"I don't know," Peter admitted, still struggling to recall what his own thoughts had been before what he thought now. "I'm just not used to people surprising me."

"Well you're lucky," Matthew whispered back. "Most of 'em shock the hell out of me."

Peter leaned back, breaking the embrace. " _Pretty Woman_ ," he said with a soft snort, recognizing the quote.

Matthew smiled at him, and that was the end of that.

*** * ***

Matthew had never been this close to anyone he wasn't related to, which he'd never thought much of until the reality of this settled over him as he and Peter sat side by side on the floor of his bedroom. He thought of a song, suddenly, and jumped up to find his headphones, the earbuds he hardly ever used anymore since Ronan had made him his new ones. He caught a moment of Peter's blinking eyes before flicking off the light and returning to sit beside him, plugging the cord into Peter's phone and offering him one of the earbuds before shoving the other in his own ear. When he found the song he was looking for, he put it on repeat and pressed play.

The slow, dreamy melody and repetitive lyrics soothed him, as they always did, and he closed his eyes, his head falling to rest on Peter's shoulder. Peter was so warm, and his skin was smooth and soft against Matthew's cheek. He opened his eyes, looking down at this new view of the boy beside him, his bare legs pulled up to chest, arms loosely locked around them, like he was holding himself together. Matthew shifted his body inward, leaning into Peter's body at an angle, so he could reach with his arm that wasn't squished between them to trace a slow circle around the rounded top of Peter's kneecap. He closed his eyes again, the sensory pleasure of it as soothing as when he rubbed his fingers between the velvety softness of his favorite blanket. The song played again and again and Matthew lost track of time, almost lulled completely to sleep before an electric shock to his senses snapped his eyes wide open to see Peter's long fingers ghosting over the knuckles of the hand that was still circling Peter's knee. Peter's fingers dipped down, crawling in and out of Matthew's like a tentative, curious spider, and Matthew's breath stopped in his throat, the sensation of this zinging from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. He felt like something was happening to him, something dangerous, something unsafe, something he did not know how to do in return. He'd never been touched like this. It terrified him. He didn't want it to stop.

Eventually, because he had to do something, he lifted his own fingers, twisting and threading them inbetween Peter's, sliding through the spaces between until they were locked together, and Matthew marveled at how such a complicated process had created something so simple. They were holding hands. And that was okay, until Peter's thumb started moving, stroking the back of Matthew's hand, like the roles had been reversed and this rhythmic touch was something Peter needed to be doing. It startled him at first, another electric spike of sensation ricocheting through him, but Matthew didn't mind it. In fact, he sort of liked it, the little shocks of heat these surprise touches sparked up and flickered inside him. He found himself chasing the sensation, moving his own thumb, circling it around the knuckle of Peter's, their thumbs spinning around each other in a clunky, pulse pounding kind of dance.

"Matthew," Peter's voice electrified Matthew's nervous system and he snapped to attention, lifting his head to look at him, the earbud falling out of his ear. Peter took out the one in his.

"You fell asleep." His voice was quiet and hoarse, his eyes half closed, a barely there smile on his lips.

"Sorry," Matthew tried to blink himself more awake. It was no use, his eyelids were ten ton weights, impossible to keep open for more than a few seconds at a time.

"It's okay," Peter whispered, and Matthew was addicted to the sound of it, like this, low and raspy and hitting him squarely in the chest. "It's late. I'm tired, too."

Something must have been said after that, but the next thing Matthew knew Peter's hands were at his feet, undoing the complicated shoes, one by one, until Matthew's feet were free of them. The armguards came off next and he then moved to his shoulders, unfastening the breastplate so he could lift it from his chest. The cool air against his now bare skin was a shock, and he experienced a brief moment of hyperawareness, noticing the way the black makeup under Peter's eyes had dried up, forming creases in the tiny delicate wrinkles of skin there.

Peter stood, extending his arms downward, his palms facing up, inviting Matthew to grab hold of them to hoist himself up as well. He held Matthew steady as he stepped out of the skirt, and Matthew allowed himself to be maneuvered into his own bed.

Peter pulled back and Matthew caught hold of one of his wrists. Their eyes locked on each other for what felt like a very long time, before Matthew realized he was the one that was going to have to speak, and he said, "Stay."

Peter sat on the edge of his bed, freeing his own feet from his strappy sandals, before twisting his body to lay down stiffly atop the blankets next to Matthew in bed. Matthew tugged at them until they slid down enough so he could pull them up over the both of them.

Matthew was very sleepy, but something was keeping him awake. Perhaps it was because he was turned the opposite way in bed, not facing the wall where his drawing hung like he usually did, but facing the boy who'd drawn it instead. He was still wearing his costume, gold leaves and all. Matthew reached out to touch the one that was exposed to him, the intricate texture of it as wonderful to touch as it felt to look at.

"After my dad died," Peter said, and it had been so long since they'd been speaking Matthew had almost forgotten the concept of it entirely. "Things got really weird. I got really weird. I don't even know how to explain it. Depressed doesn't begin to cover it. I wasn't a person."

Matthew's hand stilled and he waited for Peter to say more.

"It's lucky it happened at the beginning of summer. Because if those first few months had been during the school year, there's no way I would have made it. I didn't even think I could go back to school when September rolled around, but Uncle Jay made me, he said the last thing my dad would have wanted was for me to ruin my life because he ended his. I hated him for saying that, because I knew it was true, and I was so angry at him—my dad—for doing what he did, and then expecting the people he'd left behind to just get on with life as usual after that. School was distracting enough, but I still wasn't…real, you know? But that's when I met Whitt. He was so loud and happy and everything I hated most in the world. I don't know why he decided to set his sights on me and never let go. But the more I watched him, the more I realized how much was going on under the surface, things he kept hidden that only came out through the inevitably of time spent together, and I thought: Here's someone I can take care of. Here's someone I can keep safe."

Matthew wasn't sure why he was being told the origin stories of Peter's relationships to their other friends, but it seemed important anyway, and he liked listening to him talk, so he asked,

"What about Donovan?"

Peter gave him a sleepy lopsided smirk. "It started out as a joke, between me and Whitt. Donovan was notorious at school. Tall, dark, and handsome. Kept to himself unless he was verbally eviscerating someone who'd made the mistake of crossing him on a bad day. He sat alone at lunch, didn't seem to have any friends and he didn't seem to want any, either. Whitt and I became childishly obsessed, concocting elaborate schemes to get him to like us, sit with us, be our friend. We thought it was an immaturely thrilling, low-risk, stupid game, like ringing someone's doorbell and running away, we never expected it to actually  _work_. We flailed around like caught children, scrambling to make sense of what we'd done and how to handle the reality of it. Donovan tolerated us, for some reason, and we all settled into something that I knew was right. Whitt kept me busy and laughing, Donovan kept me serious and awake. And I took care of both of them, made sure they had everything they needed, got whatever they wanted, I knocked everyone around us down to hold them up. We were balanced, untouchable, whole. I felt real again."

Matthew smiled, chest warming at the sweetness of this, and was so glad for the way the world decided to work, bring Peter and Whitt and Donovan together when they needed each other most.

"I was wrong, though." Peter's tone chilled him, and he kept his eyes open, afraid of what he was going to say next.

"Something started to feel off. I could feel it sometimes when Donovan and Whitt got into too big of arguments, when they both expected me to take their sides, when Donovan started to question me and call me out, when Whitt came to my defense every time. I tried to push the feeling down, put out every fire, keep them distracted and happy, like they'd done so many times for me. My family was a shitshow. All of them grieving the loss of my father, half of them supporting my mother and Jay's decision, half of them turning away like they were strangers they wanted nothing to do with. I would have been in that camp, too, except I lived with them and couldn't escape. My friends were my family. I knew I could always count on them in a way I couldn't anyone else. I'd do anything for them and they'd do the same for me. But something wasn't right. Not anymore. We weren't balanced, we weren't whole. I didn't know how to fix it. But I knew if I didn't figure it out soon, we were going to fall apart."

Matthew shifted uneasily in bed, chest hollowing out at the thought of Peter and Whitt and Donovan not being friends anymore. He couldn't imagine anything worse.

"What happened?" He asked, anxious now to get to the happy ending of this story. "How did you fix it?"

"I didn't," said Peter, the slow spreading smile on his lips seeming incongruous to these words. "You did."

Matthew was suddenly more awake than he'd ever been. The shock of this settling over him like a grand task he didn't feel capable of completing. "Me?"

"I didn't want to admit that something was missing, that  _I_  wasn't enough. But it was obvious as soon as Donovan followed you that day after the fight. It was out of my hands. You were the missing piece, you were what we needed to be whole, balanced, for real this time. I didn't just _feel_  real anymore, I was. I was sure of it. We all were. You did that, Matthew. You saved us from falling apart."

Matthew found this incredibly hard to process, to fully understand. Of course he was grateful to have been let into Peter and Whitt and Donovan's friendship, but he was an invited guest, and he supposed he'd always sort of been thinking there was a time limit to that, and what Peter was saying now cracked the foundation of that belief and the tower of trepidation erected above it crumbled to the ground.

"I don't want anything to come between the four of us, ever." Peter said, his voice very even and quiet as he said it, like he was speaking the words of a prayer. "Disagreements, secrets, crushes." His deep brown eyes held Matthew's with great, unrelenting purpose. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I think so," Matthew whispered back, though he was honestly a little uncertain. "You want us all to be friends forever?"

Peter smiled again, but this time there was something strangely sad about it. "That's exactly what I want."

"Okay," said Matthew, closing his eyes, feeling at peace once more. "Me too."

He couldn't remember if more was said after that, because suddenly he was opening his eyes and bright sunlight was pouring into his bedroom. He sat up in bed, blinking and rubbing at his crusted eyes. Memories from last night shuffled around in his head like playing cards, and he stared down at the empty space in bed beside him, wondering if all that had happened with Peter in his room had been a long, long dream. Pulling back his blankets, he startled at the glint of something foreign nestled inbetween the folds of his white sheets and grabbed for it with a searching fist, opening his palm to find a small gold leaf, one of the ones that had been clipped into Peter's hair.

He ran his thumb along the detailed grooves of it, reminded of the way his thumb had circled around the roughened wrinkles of the skin on Peter's knuckles the night before. He didn't know if Peter had meant to leave the leaf behind, but he closed his fist around it, like someone might snatch it from him at any moment, and laid back down in bed, the pleasant feel of the cool, ridged metal inside his hand lulling him back to sleep.

*** * ***

Ronan had finally found a place he hated to be inside of more than the Aglionby school building, and that was airports. Plural. As in all. He'd thought when he'd dropped Adam off back in September he'd just been sour to say goodbye and the bad taste the place had left in his mouth wasn't indicative of anything but that. Now he was picking up his estranged boyfriend, a happy occasion, at an entirely different airport than before, and yet his blood still boiled. They were too loud, too bright, too crowded. He couldn't help but think about how much time he'd be spending in them now, dropping Adam off and picking him up over the next four years. The realization almost brought him to his knees right there in front of God and everyone.

Just everyone, he mentally amended, watching a security guard idle by on a segway while dragging a leashed toddler behind him. This was a Godless place.

When Ronan finally spotted Adam, it was the sweatpants alone that notified him of his boyfriend's identity. He was standing a good ten or so feet away with his back to Ronan's, next to a crowded carousel of tumbling luggage, one spindly finger crooked around the handle of his small standing suitcase, head turned down, most likely buried in his phone. The sweatpants, however, had the name of the school Adam attended in full glorious view stamped across the ass. Ronan marveled at the subtlety. His own ass vibrated with a text message from the phone unkindly shoved into his back pocket.

_Can't find you :(_

**im like 10 feet away from u dipshit**

Ronan looked up as he sent the reply, wanting to be able to witness his boyfriend's stupid little head perk up and turn toward him with a predictably amused scowl on his face.

Instead he was presented with the sight of Adam lifting his head slowly, staring straight ahead. Ronan barely had time to fondly call him an idiot in his head before Adam was pivoting his whole body, scanning the swarms of people with big, blinking eyes. He looked startlingly lost, almost frightened, in a way that made Ronan's heart fold painfully into itself. He wanted to run to him, scoop him up into his arms like he was a child, but luckily for the dignity of both of them, Adam's eyes finally found his and the way his face transformed instantly into a bright and happy smile froze Ronan where he was standing.

Adam was already moving, his suitcase rolling precariously behind him at a too-high speed before he discarded it from his grip completely to wrap both arms around Ronan, pleasantly knocking the wind out of him.

Ronan's hands were gifted with the always welcome touch of Adam's bare skin, given the sweatshirt pulled over his shoulders was cropped well above his waist.

"What's with the ass pants?"

The vibrating rumble of Adam's laughter that pressed into his chest would be enough to fuel him for days.

"A girl from my Econ class made them for some sorority fundraiser thing, she brought order forms for the whole class but no one took any. I felt bad."

"And look who's laughing now," Ronan teased.

"Exactly," Adam pulled back just enough to beam at him. "I supported a good cause and now I look cute as fuck."

There was certainly no denying that. And Ronan wasn't the only one looking. Not that Adam getting stared at longingly in public was anything new. He just happened to look especially life-ruining right now, in his collegeboy sweatpants and cuteboy crop top, and people were understandably taking notice. It always pleased Ronan very much, for Adam to be looked at with such involuntary abandon.  _Yes_ , he wanted to shout at the mindless peasants with one instance of good taste.  _Yes, yes, look at this perfect boy._

He didn't really know what he'd been expecting, seeing Adam again after they'd spent so much time apart. He'd tried to think of it as no different from picking him up after a long shift at work, so he wouldn't obsess over it, but now he felt a little underprepared for how to proceed. They were already embracing in the middle of an airport full of people like they were LARPing a scene from a TV-movie.  _So fuck it_ , he thought, reaching up to cup Adam behind the ears and pull him in for a kiss. A quick smacking one, that left his lips tingling as if from static shock. It was a nice, grounding kiss that thankfully didn't trigger the months worth of repressed desire the two of them were simmering with. Adam did quickly suggest they get the fuck out of there, though. Ronan took control of dragging Adam's bag behind them as they walked, gentleman that he was, and Adam's hand retook its rightful place threaded into Ronan's free one.

The ride back home was a quiet one, Adam was pliable and sleepy in the passenger seat, Ronan had taken to grabbing one of his hands to fiddle with while he drove. He kept the music in the car soft and dreamy, a special playlist he allowed when he was in the mood for it. He kept thinking they should stop at some point to pick up something to eat. But there was food at home and he wanted to get there faster than the physics of spacetime would permit him.

"You hungry?" was the first thing he asked when they finally stepped inside the Barns. Adam set his bag down and stretched his lanky body, wound up and sore from the flight and the drive. He made a restless sort of noise, then shook his head. Ronan threw his keys down on the coffee table, shrugged himself out of his jacket and threw it on a nearby chair. Adam stepped out of his shoes, kicked them halfheartedly toward the entryway toward the pile of Ronan's and Matthew's. This seemed to remind Adam of his little brother's existence and he asked after him.

"Who knows," Ronan snorted.

"You should," Adam scoffed back, fondly judgmental.

"With his loser friends, probably," Ronan amended. "He started hanging around some group of freaks in his class," Ronan told him. "And now he's obsessed with them."

Adam smirked, a little too knowingly, and collapsed onto the couch.

"'M so tired." He squeezed himself around one of the throw pillows and rubbed his cheek against the soft material.

"You gonna sleep on the couch?" Ronan balked, very unfavored toward that idea.

"Maybe," Adam said, extending one arm up to motion it toward Ronan. "Come here."

Ronan slid out of his jeans with a feeble grip on his casual attitude. It was easier to contain himself when he was in public. Now he had Adam here, just for himself. If he had no self control left at all, he would have stripped naked and crawled to Adam on his hands and knees, begging shamelessly to be taken in whatever manner would have pleased him the most.

But he didn't want Adam to think all he cared about was sex. It was strange how their relationship had seemed to revolve around it once they were apart. Ronan didn't like it. He understood it, the loss of physical intimacy was one thing technology still hadn't found a cure for, and the intimacy of sex was at least sort of possible to simulate. But it coiled a tension between them that Ronan had grown to deeply resent. He almost didn't even want to have sex at all while Adam was here, just to prove that it wasn't the only thing holding their relationship together.

Back in reality, however, Adam was warm and solid underneath him and he hummed with breathy pleasure as Ronan snaked his way around his body. They nuzzled into each other, nipping and sniffing at each other's skin like starved pack wolves. Silly things were murmured in horrifyingly high pitched tones, hands were starting to graze curiously underneath clothing to stroke bare skin.

"Fuck," Adam breathed in around the word, arching underneath Ronan when his finger finally slid over the hard nipple he'd been circling around. Sensitive little things, Adam's nipples. Ronan had learned to be careful with them. But right now he wanted nothing more than to push up Adam's shirt and lean down to suck on one until the entire surrounding area was nothing but a blood bruise.

"I was trying so hard to be cool," Adam whined into Ronan's neck, pushing their bodies together suggestively. "But God, Ronan, I just want you to fuck me." He kissed at his jaw sweetly, like a child asking for extra dessert. "Please fuck me."

When it came to all things intimate, Adam's mouth got dirtier and dirtier the more desperate he became. Too many months apart had rotted his teeth. He went on to paint Ronan quite the unseemly picture of what he needed to be done to him. Generous lover that he was, Ronan could only oblige. It was an awful, messy scene. He didn't even get Adam's clothes all the way off, just pulled down his pants enough to be able to effectively fuck him face down into the couch. It wasn't exactly what Ronan had in mind for their first reunited time, but Adam made up for this in his enthusiastically verbal responses to it.

Anyway, there was time for sweetness later, when Ronan—much to the other boy's protest— carried Adam upstairs and undressed him slowly and properly, gripping his hips like they were a delicate piece of art he was hanging on a wall, and tucking him gently into his bed.

Their bed.

They faced each other, quiet and content to be laid down and naked in the other's presence. Adam was scratching pleasant lines into Ronan's back, Ronan was relearning his boyfriend's body. It was a little different than what he remembered, and at first he'd thought maybe it had just been too long and his sensory memory of it wasn't as sharp as he'd assumed. But no, in the warm fairy light of his bedroom he could see expansion of skin that was softer to the touch. Faint rivulets of red streaked across his hips and disappeared between his thighs.

Ronan dipped his fingers into the indented skin, fascinated by its texture.

"Are you," Adam lifted his head to ask. "Fingering my stretch marks?"

"What's it to you?"

Adam slumped back down onto his pillow. "Freak."

Ronan contorted his body until he could reach a patch of them to swipe his tongue across it, tasting it experimentally.

"Have you been working out?"

Adam snorted loudly at that. "You think I have time to work out?"

Ronan shrugged.

Adam shook his head slowly into his pillow, like he was exhausted with him. "Tim's girlfriend works at Pizza Hut. She's always bribing me with deep dish and cheese-sticks so I'll leave the room so they can fuck."

"Damn," Ronan mused, moving so he could cup his boyfriend's new, well-fed ass and give it an appreciative squeeze. "My boy thick."

Adam smiled like a cat with a knife to its throat, pleased to be body-worshipped, as always.

He slid one hand from where it had been resting on Ronan's back up to scratch at his cheek. "You shaved the beard."

"Yeah," Ronan screwed up his face. "It was driving me nuts."

Adam pouted. "I wanted it."

Maybe it was the high of closeness, maybe it was Adam's juicy peach of an ass, but Ronan was in a suddenly fiesty mood, so he countered with a slickly suggestive, "What about what I want?"

It was almost comical how weak Adam was for bratty, demanding Ronan. Plus, the opposite of the male stereotype, something became incensed inside him when he was the first to come. It was like the need to please Ronan tunneled his vision, became all he could think about, and was unable to rest until he'd satisfied this twined hunger they now shared. He crawled on top of Ronan, threading their fingers together so he could raise their hands above Ronan's head on his pillow. "I've been awful selfish, haven't I?"

Ronan's chest heaved under him. "Just a little."

He leaned down to kiss and nip at Ronan's neck, Ronan's body responded to it like a sedative shot directly into his veins. His muscles went impossibly lax, his body rolling itself out, pliable and wanting.

"You gonna tell me what you want?" Adam whispered, grazing his lips against the sharp stubble across Ronan's jaw. "Or do I have to drag it out of you?"

Ronan could feel Adam getting hard again, excited at the thought of either option.

"Kiss me," Ronan said, because his mind had suddenly gone blank and he needed time to think.

But Adam did kiss him, which was a thing that routinely made thinking extremely difficult. He was overwhelmed with senses, being starved of Adam for so long, having him back now was something his mind and body were still coming to terms with. His body burned with want, his mind was riddled with anxiety and loss. Too soon, Adam would be leaving again. They only had tonight which was almost over, tomorrow, which was a holiday and alone time would be scared, and then all of Friday and half of Saturday. He had to soak in every second, and he didn't want to waste too many precious seconds on sex, of all things.

It was stupid. Of course they should be having sex, they should be having as much sex as possible, because they were going to have to go another long stretch of time without any of it. He loved having sex with Adam, he'd just had sex with Adam, and it had been unsurprisingly wonderful. Too late for him to talk himself out of his own brain sparring itself, Adam had already picked up on his shift in mood. He was too attuned to Ronan's body now, for having spent so much time pressed up against it, inside of it, Ronan could hide nothing from him.

He moved from Ronan's lips to kiss the outside of his ear before he whispered, "What's wrong?"

Ronan sighed. "A lot."

Adam's shoulders sank, the fierce grip from his thighs on Ronan's hips slackened, and Ronan felt the familiar feeling of ruination bubble like sick in his stomach.

"I'm waiting for you to tell me," said Adam, a slight mocking lilt to his voice, like he was reminding Ronan that being very still did not make him invisible.

Ronan did not want to tell Adam what was wrong, since the thing that was wrong was himself, and he was trying to not be completely unappealing to a beautiful boy with the world at his fingertips and nothing holding him back. He didn't want to talk at all right now, because if he started talking, he'd start crying, and there was nothing worse than crying and being naked at the same time. He managed to answer the original question, the long ago posed one, about what he wanted.

"I just want you to hold me."

"Okay," said Adam, bemused, rolling off of Ronan and repositioning himself in bed.

Ronan rolled the other way, so his back was facing Adam's chest. "Like this," he all but begged, reaching back for Adam's arm to snake it around his waist. "With your leg—"

"I know what to do," Adam interrupted with a fond chuckle, sliding one leg between Ronan's and pulling him flush to his chest. He tried to let this soothe him, this ultimate meeting of pleasure and safety he'd never felt before the first time Adam held him like this, but his heart raged in his chest. His mind swam with guilt, shame.

"Sorry," Ronan breathed, voice barely audible even to his own ears.

"No," Adam replied simply, readjusting in an attempt to slide their bodies even closer, hold Ronan tighter.

"I missed you so much," he hummed dreamily into Ronan's too hot skin. He felt the tip of Adam's nose graze a path over his shoulder. "I missed your smell."

Ronan's control over his breathing faltered. How exhausting it was to be mentally breaking down and turned on at the same time.

"I'm trying to be sad and you're confusing my dick," he whined at Adam.

Adam laughed softly, moving his leg between Ronan's in a tortuous tandem of comfort and suggestion.

"Why you sad?" he murmured into his ear, vowels gummed up in the repulsive way neither of them could resist talking to each other in.

"I don't want to ruin this," Ronan whispered. "I can't ruin this."

"Ruin what?" Adam's voice was no longer playful or affectionate. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing," Ronan insisted, overtaken with panic and self loathing. "I'm just being stupid. Forget it."

Adam unspooned himself from Ronan and the punishment of it sawed into him like a serrated edge of a rusty blade. "You can't just shut me out like that," Adam spoke like he was the one who'd been cut into. "You'd lose your shit if I did that to you."

Of course this had turned into a fight. Every time Ronan tried to stop something from going all wrong, it only catapulted further into the worst kind of chaos, just to spite him.

"I'm not trying to shut you out," Ronan growled back, too wound up to control himself. "I'm trying to hold it together _for you_ ," his voice was raised, sharp, full of rocks and tears. "This is supposed to be a break for you, an easy thing, a nice thing. And I didn't want to fucking ruin it being so goddamn fucked up but I guess I already did, so whatever." Tears were falling freely now and his throat was squeezed so tightly his voice came out in a horrible, high pitched rasp. "I'm a fucking mess. I'm depressed and suicidal and all alone and I'm trying to fucking get through it. I'm taking these stupid pills, classes, but it's still really hard. Every single day is hard. I don't know how to do this, I don't know what to—fuck—"

He was blubbering, full-on ugly crying, and Adam had taken him back into his arms at that point, pulling him into his lap like he was a baby. He rubbed the back of Ronan's neck while Ronan's pressed his face into his, and Adam patiently let him catch his breath before saying,

"So, we need to talk."

Ronan tried to explain how things had gotten so bad, Adam silently listened to him blunder his way through it, stopping him only once to ask why Ronan hadn't told him, and he'd cornered himself into vocalizing the shame of his own insecurities. He didn't want Adam to think he was falling apart just because Adam was gone, he didn't want to drag Adam into his stupid problems, he didn't want Adam to think he was too much, to deal with, be with. Adam took this news about as well as he'd expected him to.

"Ronan, what am I to you?"

Ronan was startled by the question, the quiet, probing way it was posed. He blinked, struggling to come up with a sufficient answer.

"I'm not asking for a sonnet," Adam gruffed, the flicker of a held in smile on his lips. "I'm speaking literally."

"You're my boyfriend," Ronan mumbled, rubbing at his swollen, tear-blurred eyes.

"And you're my boyfriend," Adam said, salting the word with a coat of posessiveness that never failed to make Ronan's spine tingle. "Do you know what that means?"

"Go ahead and tell me," Ronan pouted, well aware he was being lectured.

"Your problems are my problems, regardless of whether you're keeping them from me or not. That's just how it is."

"Oh? It's in the official boyfriend rules?" Ronan cut in, because he was deeply ashamed and uncomfortable and it was just a knee-jerk response to be a little bit of a shit.

"You let me complain to you about annoying classmates and hardass professors, even when you had your own shit going on, and you were happy to do it. Not letting me do the same for you isn't fair. What's the point of even being in a relationship, then?"

Ronan's pulse spiked in remorseful terror. Of course, trying to keep Adam's mind off the idea of breaking up with him had only led him to that very conclusion.

"I'm just saying," Adam pressed a sweet kiss to his jaw, taking note of the way it had locked itself down in a tight grimace. "No more keeping secrets, promise?"

Ronan turned his face, sealing his promise with a kiss rather than words.

"So," Adam said, after awhile. "Pills?"

Ronan blanched, snuggling back down into bed. "They're just for like, you know," he huffed, feeling like he was describing a wet dream in detail. "Panic attacks. I only take one when I feel really overwhelmed."

"Do they help?" Adam followed him down.

Ronan nodded. Adam kissed his forehead. "Good."

"And the classes?" he asked, his fair furrowed brows barely visible in the low fairy lights of Ronan's bedroom.

"It was Declan's idea," Ronan replied, allowing that to sink in for a good long minute before he went on. "I enrolled in a couple classes at HCC."

Adam was silent for a moment.

"Are you freaked out?"

"I'm trying to imagine how you managed to do that without a high school diploma," Adam snorted softly back.

"I got a GED," Ronan said. "Well, kinda."

"Kinda?"

"It's not a big deal," Ronan huffed. "Declan talked to the school and since he's paying out of pocket and I'm not degree-seeking, they don't really give a shit. It's just a dumb woodworking class and poetry class, so."

"Poetry?" Adam snaked an arm around him, his voice going squeakingly high on the tail end of the word.

"Yeah,  _poetry_ ," Ronan scowled back at him. "And I'm really good at it, so suck my dick."

"Not until you write a love poem about me," Adam crooned, nuzzling into Ronan's neck, and Ronan remembered now why he never told him anything ever.

"Already have," Ronan shot back, rolling around to face his boyfriend in bed. "Got an A on it. My professor loved the way I compared your dick to the eggplant emoji."

"Mm," Adam hummed suggestively into his skin. "Sexy and smart. How'd I get so lucky?"

Everything laid out in the open, it mildly infuriated Ronan how quickly it stilled the rollicking waves of his insides, his fears and anxieties melting like spun sugar on the roof of his mouth. It was just so hard to hold onto, the knowledge that Adam was his, that this was real, not a long and wonderful dream he needed to be in constant fear of waking up from. He took in Adam's half-lit face in the soft orange light, tracing his finger across his brow bone, down the bridge of his nose, circling around the shell of his ear. How could it be possible, that he really got to keep this?

"I'm in love with you," Ronan said, low and more serious than he'd ever been.

"Same," Adam whispered back, eyes crinkling up in amusement. Ronan thought of what they might look like ten years from now, or fifty.

"I mean it," said Ronan, holding those eyes in his, his favorite shade of blue. "Forever."

Adam's expression flickered, like it was an exciting thought but not an entirely believable one.

"I hope so," he said. He sounded shy.

Ronan kissed him, then. Soft and slow and deep, cradling Adam's face in his hands, kissing him with everything he had. These lips were the only lips he'd ever kissed, the only lips he ever wanted to kiss, and there was no way to explain that enough with words, so he had to rely on what his lips, teeth, tongue could do without them.

Heat pulsed between their bodies, the sensitive place where their hips met and legs intertwined. Adam panted, wet and desperate, into Ronan's mouth. "You expect me to sleep after you kiss me like that?"

Ronan smirked into his lips, thinking of what they'd taste like tomorrow, the next day, or when a day came they'd be so wrinkled and paperthin there would hardly be anything left there to kiss. "No."

When they did finally sleep, Ronan dreamed in singsong circles, slow moving colors and the feeling of soft grass enveloping him, cool breezes and the sweet, sleepy smell of sun on skin. When he awoke, he'd brought back the smallest and simplest of all his creations to date, and when Adam saw it, he plucked it from Ronan's delicately curled fist and slid the smooth hollowed out stone circle onto his left ring finger. Ronan didn't have to ask, Adam didn't have to answer.

"Perfect fit," he grinned, voice still raspy from sleep. He held up his hand to the light, admiring the new addition to it.

After months spent drifting in and out of himself, of this world, losing time and forgetting to care, being so relentlessly tired, Ronan realized with a sudden, bursting, head-spinning certainty that he was awake.

*** * ***

For all the years spent fantasizing about what it would be like to kiss a boy, now that Peter had finally done it, he was very concerned about how not great it was.

Kevin was a freshman at Virginia Tech, a lanky fanartist's rendition of every Ronald Weasley drawing he'd ever gotten himself off to, he was whip smart and funny in a dry, eye-rolling sort of way. He'd met him the night of the Hawthorne Halloween party and woken up the next morning, shocked to see that after he'd been spilled on and partially mauled by Lizzie Hawthorne, he'd gone through the trouble of finding Peter on Facebook so he could send him a message, asking him on a date.

And he wasn't a  _bad_  kisser, really, Peter thought. Though he couldn't be sure, since he had nothing but the back of his own hand to compare his technique to. Maybe Peter just had the wrong expectations about kissing all these years. It seemed like it'd be the most mind numbing nerve tingling thing the human body could possibly experience. More than he thought about blowjobs, more than he thought about sex, he thought about kissing. The nonsensical intimacy of pressing your mouth to another person's, sliding your tongue in and out of it, sucking on their lips until you ran out of breath. The mere thought of it got his heart racing, heat and blood rushing to the lower half of his body.

But then Kevin had kissed him, for the first time, on November 11th, a date Peter had thought would be the most monumental one of his entire life, and he struggled now to even remember the experience in any great detail.

He'd been making excuses for weeks, a first kiss was bound to be awkward, life wasn't a black and white movie. And Peter's inexperience could not be overestimated, so the next few kisses he couldn't expect to be all that earth moving, either. Relationships were about learning, giving and taking, compromise and trust. Maybe kissing just didn't get good until you really knew the person you were kissing inside and out, trusted them with your life, gave them everything you had and taken all they'd given you.

He certainly couldn't say any of those things about Kevin, not yet, anyway. They'd only been dating for almost a month. In all that time, he felt like he barely knew him, which was strange for him, considering his track record when it came to getting to know people was quite the opposite, somehow managing to download every piece of information he could possibly glean from them within days of meeting.

But Kevin was mysterious, and that was sexy, in theory. It didn't feel very sexy, currently, as the inscrutable boy was biting down on his bottom lip in a way that just hurt. Peter tried to relax, let himself get into it, wondering how something could possibly be this wrong with him. All of the things Kevin was doing should be unbearably hot, but Peter felt nothing but a sort of bored obligation, like he was doing the dishes. Was he just broken, somehow? Unable to respond to human touch? No, that couldn't be possible. Though he'd done everything in his power to erase the memories from his mind, his brain spitefully remembered them, because for some reason heartwrenching misery really did it for him. And now that he'd tipped the lid of them, the memories spilled out all over, and he couldn't stop thinking about the way Matthew Lynch's rough fingers had dug slow, searing circles into his skin, the warm press of his body against his, the way his lips parted while he slept, his bare chest rising and falling in bed, centimeters away from Peter's, close enough to touch, close enough to kiss. He imagined Matthew's hands in his hair, those rose petal pink lips pressed to his, what would he taste like? Peter would raid villages and murder innocents just to get to find out once.

Kevin had pushed him back onto his bed, riled by Peter's sudden spike in passion, and then his hands were moving from Peter's hair down the front of his shirt, stopping frantically at the waist of his jeans and shaking to work them open.

"Whoa," Peter pushed back against his shoulders, frozen as if his blood had been replaced with ice cold rushing water. "What are you doing?"

Kevin smirked, fingered the seam of his zipper. "Isn't it obvious?"

Peter's heart stopped in his chest, and he was as still and cold as a corpse. "My parents are right downstairs."

Kevin leaned down to place a suggestive kiss on his neck. "So?"

"So," Peter squirmed at the touch, shifting his body decidedly away from the boy hovering on top of him. "Not gonna happen."

Kevin sighed and rolled away from him. "You are cold-blooded, Priyabrata Mirchandani."

Peter really regretted telling Kevin his birth name, because even though he'd explained to him that he preferred to be called Peter unless by members of his family, Kevin insisted he wanted to use "his real name". Peter  _was_  his real name, and in some ways, realer than what was on his birth certificate, but he found he didn't have the words to explain this to this boy he barely knew, so he quietly allowed it. He even tried to find it romantic, though he was yet to be successful in this venture.

The truth of the matter sagged inside him, like an infected wound he was determined to clean out over and over again, refusing to cut off the limb. Kevin McDaniel was not the love of his life, he wasn't even the love of his month, but he was, well, something. Something to keep his mind off things he shouldn't be thinking about, something to keep him from doing something stupid and life ruining because he couldn't control his own emotions.

A knock sounded on the door and Kevin jumped from the bed like a scared cat, and Peter shot him a condescending look of rightness. He played nice and polite for Jay, who'd come to inform them that dinner was ready and they should come downstairs.

"I thought your dad would be a lot scarier," Kevin whispered to him as they descended side by side.

Peter would have usually happily taken this moment to inform whoever was mistaken that Jay was not his father, but he was too thrown by the previous events that had just taken place in his bedroom, and he honestly didn't really care what Kevin thought, and he'd already—he now realized—referred to his mother and Jay as his parents, so for once he was content to let someone believe it.

*** * ***

Matthew awoke on Thanksgiving Day with a horrible disquiet feeling in the pit of his stomach. He could hear Ronan and Adam puttering around downstairs, preparing food for the evening's meal and preparing the house for his other brother's imminent arrival. He was usually so excited to see Adam he could not contain himself and would have raced down the stairs like the house was on fire to greet him with a tight hug and happy smile, if he'd been feeling at all like himself and not like some awful creature had taken over his mind, slowly working its way to gain control of his body, limb by limb.

The feeling hadn't sprung up inside him overnight. It was something that had been growing for awhile now, ever since Peter had introduced his boyfriend to Matthew and the rest of his friends, and Matthew had recognized him from the Halloween party, and taken such an instant dislike to him it was frightening. Matthew waited, silently hoping something would happen and Kevin would transform into something Matthew could stomach the sight of, but after the third time he'd survived a cluster of hours of his presence, he had to ask:

"Do you like Kevin?"

Donovan had shrugged. "He's alright, I guess."

Whitt was equally nonplussed. "As long as Peter's happy."

That was when it happened. The poison in his stomach bursting open and slithering into razor sharp vines that wrapped themselves around his organs, squeezing tightly and cutting into him every time he watched Kevin wrap his arms around Peter's shoulders, or Peter laugh at something he said, or when he thought about the two of them together—alone.

Matthew did not like the thought of Peter being happy with Kevin, in fact it made him sick to his stomach, and he began to panic, scared of himself, of how he could be so awful a friend. He started googling his symptoms, wondering if he had some other mental problem the counselor hadn't checked for, something that made him angry and sad and sick at the thought of his own best friend's happiness.

It didn't take long for Matthew to solve the mystery, and he was horrified to learn he'd acquired a new emotion he'd never felt before: jealousy.

After all Peter had said to him that night, about how important their friendship was and how none of them could let anything ruin it, how could Matthew have let this happen? More importantly, how could he make it stop? He couldn't talk to Whitt or Donovan about it, they'd probably feel awkward and sorry for him, and they'd most likely tell Peter, since they weren't supposed to keep secrets from each other. And Peter would be so upset and disappointed and everything would be ruined and it would be all Matthew's fault.

As if the first one had ripped open some kind of hole inside him, a swarm of new negative emotions spilled out, staining his insides with burning shame, the sour milk of guilt, the unbearable heaviness of everything that was wrong with him. Kevin was his physical opposite, tall and lean, fair skinned and ruddy haired. He made Peter laugh so much, more than Matthew ever had. And he didn't do weird things like rock back and forth in public or wear headphones everywhere he went or have to avoid certain places Peter wanted to go altogether because the lights were too bright or the air inside was too stuffy and weird.

At some point he heard the front door open and the loud sounds of Ronan and Adam greeting Declan as he came inside and he curled himself up tighter in bed, knowing his oldest brother would probably be climbing up the stairs any moment to come say hello to him. Matthew wished with everything he had in him that he could just disappear. He couldn't handle being around people right now. Not even Adam and his brothers. In fact, especially not them. They couldn't possibly understand what he was feeling right now and they'd poke him and prod him and ask him questions he didn't know how to answer and just make everything a million times worse.

The footsteps didn't come, or at least not for a much longer time than Matthew had been expecting, and of course it was Adam who they'd sent to fetch him, knowing Matthew wouldn't be able to say no to his sad downturned eyes when he told Matthew how very much they all wanted him to come down to dinner and spend time with them.

He told Adam he wasn't feeling well, but Adam was so insidiously persuasive that Matthew hadn't even realized he'd been tricked out of his bed until he was already at the foot of the stairs.

"What's up, bud?" Declan reached for him when he passed by where he sat at the table, Matthew slipped away from his hand, sat down at the opposite end where there was enough space around him to breathe in.

"Tired," Matthew explained numbly. "Don't feel good."

"Maybe you'll feel better after you eat something," Declan suggested, thankfully leaving it at that. Ronan was too busy being fussy and fidgety about the food and setting everything up and so he was mercifully uninterested in him at the moment. If the rest of dinner passed this way, Matthew thought he may just be able to get through it without his head exploding.

This was the table their family used to sit at when there were five of them. Mom, Dad, Declan, Ronan, and Matthew. Now it was just Declan, Ronan, Adam, and Matthew. One seat left mockingly empty, Matthew stared at it, tuning out the bland conversation Adam and Declan were making about something to do with Adam's school. Ronan cleared his throat and said before they started eating he wanted to say something and Matthew was only half paying attention but the silence that followed whatever he'd said stretched on for so long that it pounded in his ears and he had to get rid of it somehow and so he said the first thing that came to his mind which was,

"Opal should be here."

Time seemed to freeze around him, like he'd spoken some sort of magic incantation. He realized the roaring silence had just been in his head because the three men around him stopped talking abruptly, Matthew's words an unexpected interruption.

"Matthew," Ronan said, in a voice that really said  _shut up_ but Matthew suddenly didn't feel like shutting up so he kept talking.

"You act like she never even existed," he said, not sure who exactly he was accusing of this. "It's fucked up. She should be here."

"Matthew," Ronan said again, this time infuriatingly gentle. "We talked about this. She wasn't happy here."

"So?" Matthew finally looked up at his brother, his eyes open painfully wide. "You should have tried to make her happy."

"We did," Adam cut in, his hand placed on Ronan's tensed forearm, and Matthew noticed a small black ring on his finger he'd never noticed him wearing before. "We did try, Matthew, but things were hard for her out here. It was best for her to go back."

"How would you know?" Matthew snapped at him, and the struck look on Adam's face was almost enough to bring him back down to Earth, but he'd been wound up so tightly for so long, he couldn't believe how much of a relief it was to finally let it all go.

"She wanted to go back, Matthew. She didn't belong here. She was never supposed to be out here." Ronan's voice was a knife in the air, signaling that this was the end of the discussion. He sounded like Dad. The little amount of control Matthew had left over himself disintegrated.

"Why do you get to decide who belongs here and who doesn't?" His voice was raised, he was almost shouting. " _You're_  the one who brought her out here. If she felt like she didn't belong here you should have made her feel like she did. I don't feel like I belong here, either. So what's the difference?"

Adam and Declan exchanged a look, Ronan sighed, breathing in deeply through his nose, his nostrils flaring.

"Can we talk about this later?"

"Why?" Matthew snorted. "You just keep repeating the same shit over and over, because it's what you have to tell yourself because you can't handle the truth. You didn't know how to make things better for Opal, and she was a problem for you, so you just got rid of her."

"That's not true," Adam spoke up again, hurt creasing between his eyes. "Matthew, listen—"

"I'm talking to my brother," Matthew said, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears. He was standing now, though he didn't remember getting up, and his hand was reaching for the carving knife at the center of the table. "Aren't I a problem, too? Why not get rid of me? Or should I just do it myself?"

Everyone was standing now, matching looks of wild horror on each of their faces as Matthew twisted his wrist around, pressing the knife against his throat.

"It's not like it would matter, would it?" He felt the sharp sting of his skin tearing as his throat moved against the blade. "You'd just make another one of me. Maybe this time you can actually do it right."

It was smart that Adam had grabbed him, because while Ronan and Declan could probably best him on a physical level, he would have had no qualms about making as much of a mess of himself and them as he could before they knocked the fight out of him. He wouldn't dare break out of the tight hold Adam had on him from behind, for fear of hurting him in the process.

"Hey," he said, his voice soft and reassuring. "It's okay. You need to talk and we're all going to listen to you, but I need you to put the knife down first. Can do you that, for me, please?"

Matthew dropped it. It wasn't like he actually wanted to use it, anyway.

"Thank you," Adam said, still holding him.

"Matthew," Ronan looked at him with big strange eyes. "You can't really think that. You're a person. You can't just be replaced. You're my brother. I made you right the first time." He looked like a little kid. He looked like he was about to cry. Matthew's own eyes blurred with stinging hot tears.

"No you didn't," he growled the words at Ronan, lurching forward in Adam's grasp involuntarily, feeling like a wild animal. "I'm all messed up. And I hate feeling like this, I hate  _being_  like this, I hate you for making me like this."

Adam had let go of him at some point, maybe he was afraid Matthew  _would_  hurt him if he didn't, and the humiliation of that unspooled the very last thread of Matthew's ability to be here right now, so he stomped toward the front door, wrenching it open and tearing off like a caught thief into the night.

*** * ***

"Let him go," was the first thing Declan said since Matthew had started to fucking lose it in front of them, and Ronan's chest heaved against his brother's hold on him, turning his head from the still open door to stare at him in utter disbelief.

"You can't be fucking serious," Ronan spat. "He's going to hurt himself."

"No, he's not," said Declan. "He's going to call one of his friends and they're going to come pick him up and he's going to tell them all about how much he hates his stupid brother and they're going to nod their heads and agree and talk shit until they fall asleep."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Ronan blinked at him, his mind still reeling from what had just happened. He thought Matthew had been doing so well, he'd done the classes and gone back to school, he'd made friends, he'd seemed happy. Where was this coming from? How had Ronan not noticed how unstable he was? Matthew, his Matthew, who'd just threatened to kill himself over Thanksgiving dinner, was out in the dark alone, hurting inside and bleeding from his neck.

"Just a hunch," Declan said, fixing Ronan with a disorientingly knowing look. "He'll be over it tomorrow, or the day after that, and come sulking back by the time he gets hungry."

Ronan shook his head, this was his fault for not telling Declan about what had really happened at school, the disturbing argument that had ensued after it, the words that had cut him so deeply he tried to pretend they'd never been spoken. "You don't know what you're talking about."

Declan sighed, releasing Ronan's shoulder and raising his hands in mock surrender. "A suicidal little brother who screams in your face that he hates you? You're right, Ronan. I've got no experience in that department."

"Declan's right." Adam was at his other side, his left hand snaking under the hem of the back of his shirt, rubbing at the bare skin of his lower back, a favored calm-down technique of his. Now Ronan could feel the textured rub of the stone ring on his finger when he did it, which only made it 1000% more effective.

"I don't think he really wanted to hurt himself," Adam went on. "He just wanted our attention."

"Mission accomplished," Ronan growled, now more angry than afraid. How the fuck could Matthew say all that shit to him? Matthew was his whole world, the core of his purpose for living. Everything he did, he did for him. He loved him more than he'd ever loved anyone, anything. He'd lay down and die right now if that would somehow serve Matthew's life for the better. How could Matthew not  _feel_  that with every fiber of his being? How could he see Ronan as anything but an ally, a savior, a brother who would do anything for him? Where had he fucked up so badly that his little brother saw him as an enemy? How could he fix this? He had to fix this, he had to fix this.

His hands were shaking now, and Adam moved closer to him, his arm wrapping around his middle, ready to catch him if he fell. But when Ronan did collapse, it was into his brother's arms, who hadn't been prepared at all, but caught him just the same.

Declan grabbed him by the scruff on the back of his neck, like he was a puppy, and led him to the couch, and Ronan could smell the too-familiar scent of his woodsy cologne, the same one he'd been wearing for years, the smell of someone who was older than him, the smell of telling him what to do.

Declan didn't tell him what to do now, he just held him, like Ronan had always wanted him to do. He rubbed the back of his neck, let him sob into his pressed white dress shirt, harder and uglier than Ronan had cried last night in Adam's arms, harder than he'd ever cried in his life. He gulped in noisy, useless breaths like some kind of howling animal, all his rage and fear and guilt and resentment pouring out of him, spilling out onto his brother's shoulder.

And then it was over, and Ronan breathed and breathed and breathed until he felt completely hollowed out, Declan now carrying everything that was pent up inside him, shouldering the onslaught of burden with nothing but the quiet and resolute devotion of someone doing their job.

"It's going to be alright," he said, not until Ronan was ready to hear it. "Everything's going to be alright."

He didn't know why he believed him, suddenly, when he never had before. Declan took care of things in the dark, in thankless silence, in constant invisibility, except Ronan could see it now. But that's not what he wanted, he wanted to feel like he could collapse into his arms and cry into his shoulder whenever he needed to, and the ghost of Matthew's words came to haunt the back of his mind, and Ronan finally understood.

"You didn't make me feel like I could," he whispered, exhausted and exposed like his entire body was one big raw nerve.

"I know," said Declan, and pressed his lips to Ronan's creased forehead. "Don't make the same mistake."

"What if I already did?"

Declan's voice came out shaky this time, like he was holding back tears himself. "It's not too late to fix it."

"I don't know what to do," Ronan admitted miserably.

"Go talk to your fiancé. " Declan's voice sharpened to a point and Ronan turned to see Adam cleaning the table and sealing everything into various containers and transferring them to the refrigerator in the kitchen. Like a video game character who'd been programmed to respond to the push of a button, he got up and walked to him, sliding his hands around his hips from behind as he was shutting the door of the fridge.

Adam stilled where they stood, Ronan dropped his forehead to the back of Adam's neck.

"Hey," he said. "What are you doing?"

"No sense letting all this food go to waste," said Adam, calm and collected like everything was extremely normal.

"I'm sorry everything's a fucking mess," he spoke the words into Adam's skin, quiet and reverent, like he was praying for forgiveness. "This isn't what I wanted you to come back to." The unspoken fear was there, that Adam might be deciding to bounce from this shitshow and never come back.

"I come back for you," Adam said, hugging his arms around himself so he could reach for where Ronan's shoulders were pressed into his back. Ronan pulled back and looked at the ring on Adam's finger. His skin flushed, hot and yearning.

"Still wanna marry me?"

Adam sighed, like Ronan had asked if he could stop for milk on his way home. "Yeah."

Ronan kissed the back of his neck, once, a promise. He climbed the stairs, trembling with fixed decision. He wanted nothing more than to sit out on the porch all night like a crazy hillbilly, waiting with wide open eyes for the first sign of Matthew. But he'd have to leave that job to Declan, because right now what Ronan needed to do, more than anything, was sleep.

*** * ***

It was a good thing Thomas Whittaker had been lounging on the curved cushions in front of the bay window downstairs, otherwise he probably wouldn't have noticed the bloody boy standing outside of it.

He unlatched the large middle window and the boy climbed inside.

"Hey Matty," he said, unsurprised. Now that he was here, Thomas realized this was what he'd been waiting for. Why he'd woken up this morning feeling sick to his stomach and buzzing with anxiety, why he'd had to stay home while his parents drove the annual twelve hours to have the big Whittaker Thanksgiving Feast in Florida with the rest of his family. He hated long drives, so he was ultimately glad for the excuse. It was the waiting that sucked, the shaking anticipation, stirring his blood and chattering his teeth like he'd snorted a line of Adderall, waiting for whatever what was going to come to him to show up and explain itself. But Matthew was here now and the feeling dissolved instantly into cool and experienced determination. He'd thrown up every day for a week before that first day of school when he met Peter and it finally stopped. He would have dropped to his knees and kissed his feet right then and there if Peter would have let him. It was hard not to fall in immediate love with the guy whose presence cured him of what he'd been deliriously and dehydratedly sure he was going to die from.

He took Matthew's hand, led him to the kitchen, ran a paper towel under the faucet, and dabbed it at the dripping gash across his neck. It was a superficial cut, it was just bleeding a lot, he'd need to get some gauze and tape.

"What happened?" He asked, holding a fresh paper towel there, for now.

"I got in a fight with my brother," said Matthew, red blooming through the white as he spoke.

Thomas frowned. "He did this?"

Matthew closed his eyes. "No."

Thomas instructed him to hold the paper towel against his neck himself while he went to search for the right kind of supplies. After Matthew's cut had been properly cleaned, dabbed with antibacterial pain relief cream, and bandaged in a way that would stop the bleeding and keep it from getting infected, he said,

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Matthew shook his head. Thomas didn't have any siblings, so he didn't really know how fighting with one would feel, or what was the best way to deal with those feelings.

But his instincts were hardly ever wrong, so he went ahead and blurted out the one that was tanging the tip of his tongue like the plus side of a battery.

"You wanna get high and watch  _Lord of The Rings_?"

"This is so cool," said Matthew, as they laid down on the floor, staring up at the ceiling he'd pointed his projector toward, broadcasting the bright blues and greens of Middle Earth across the entirety of it.

Thomas took another drag of the joint he knew he'd been saving for good reason, then lifted his arm up to hold it to Matthew's lips, the  _Fault in Our Stars_  movie poster position they'd chosen to put themselves in making this transition a fluid and easy one. He stayed quiet, sensing this was what Matthew needed, and they passed the joint back and forth until there was nothing left of it.

"Where's your family?" Matthew didn't think to ask him until they were half way through  _The Two Towers._

Thomas explained, and Matthew asked why he hadn't gone with them, and Thomas, for some reason, found himself saying, "I kind of knew you were coming."

"How?" asked Matthew, his voice as trusting and curious as a child's.

Thomas shrugged, one of his shoulders bumping into Matthew's. "It's just a thing that happens. I feel weird and sick for awhile, and then something happens and I'm like, oh that's why, and I take care of it."

"Oh," said Matthew, like that was a blandly ordinary thing. "Like being psychic?"

"Maybe," Thomas replied. He didn't have a word for it, this thing that happened to him, and he'd never told anyone so no one else had come up with a word for it, either. They were quiet again.

"I'm not a real person," said Matthew, and this seemed to be the point of things, the familiar high rushing through Thomas's bloodstream when he'd gotten to the point of things.

"What do you mean?" he asked, the words coming out automatic and easy, like they were reciting lines from a movie aloud.

"My brother can make things, whole things out of nothing, he does it when he's asleep, while he's dreaming."

"How?" asked Thomas, high and sure and wondering.

"I don't know," Matthew shrugged, his shoulder nudging Thomas's. "But he made me when he was, like, three. He didn't mean to. It was an accident."

"He must have had an unprecedented knowledge of human anatomy for someone his age," Thomas replied, the thought of a baby creating another baby, like Frankenstein in his lab, disturbingly funny to him.

"He didn't do such a great job," Matthew scoffed back. "It's not like I'm normal."

"Being normal," said Thomas, turning his head to stare at Matthew Lynch's Roman relief profile of a face, "is vastly overrated."

Matthew turned to look back at him, his forest green eyes blown wide. " _Halloweentown_."

Thomas smiled and Matthew smiled back at him. Thomas reached up to scratch his fingers into the back of Matthew's curly hair.

"I'm glad your brother accidentally made you," he said, a flicker of hypothetical panic burning his throat, the thought of a world without Matthew Lynch in it. Unbearable.

"I don't know if I can do it," Matthew told him, closing his eyes tight like he was in pain. "Stay here, in the real world, being how I am."

"I feel that way sometimes," Thomas replied, voice crinkled dry from all the smoke he'd been inhaling. "I tried to kill myself, once."

Matthew shifted sharply toward him, his whole body turning over to face his.

"What happened?"

Thomas snorted. "It didn't work."

Matthew gaped at him for a long indiscernible moment, and then a slow babbling brook of laughter started to shudder from his chest, and Thomas laughed spittingly through his hand, and they lay there cackling in the dark like two siblings who'd just gotten yelled at by their parents for being too loud, which only rendered restraint physically impossible.

But they had to catch their breaths eventually, and sobriety splashed back over the both of them like a gust of cold wind through some forgotten open window.

"Why did you do it?" Matthew's words seemed to be sounding out in slow motion. Thomas didn't know if it was his buzz altering his perception or if Matthew just had those sort of settings at his disposal under any circumstances.

"Sometimes things just get to be too much," Thomas said, dry-mouthed and honest. "You know?"

He felt the rustle of Matthew's hair as he nodded.

"Please don't try again," he said after a contemplative pulse of silence. "If you were gone, I don't think I'd ever feel okay again."

"I wouldn't do that to Peter," Thomas assured him, unsure if Matthew knew the things that he did, but it was too late to take the words back now. "Or you."

"Does he know?" asked Matthew.

Thomas nodded. "Donovan doesn't."

Matthew's body tensed next to him. "Peter said we shouldn't keep secrets from each other."

"Well Donovan knows about the other thing," Thomas reasoned in a lazy, blazed sort of logic. "So it, like, evens out."

"Why'd you tell him?"

"I didn't," Thomas sighed, exhausted by even the thought of the memory. "We were driving up to DC together once, and I started to get really sick, this horrible gut-wrenching pain in my stomach, I felt like I couldn't breathe. Donovan had to pull over three different times so I could throw up. He kept saying we should turn back, go home, get me to the doctor and resting in bed. But I was shaking with the purpose of it, I couldn't think of anything else, we had to keep going. Finally we saw it, there was a stray dog in the middle of the road, he'd been hit pretty badly and was bleeding out. Still alive, though. We called 911 and got him picked up. We stayed up all night, waiting to hear the news. He didn't make it. I sort of lost my mind. Shaking and crying and shit. So embarrassing. But it was my responsibility and the shock of failure was so unbearable, I thought my heart was going to fucking explode in my chest. Donovan just rubbed my shoulders, insisted that we'd done all we could do and it wasn't my fault. But I couldn't help but feel,  _know_ , if I hadn't stopped all those times to get sick and calm back down, maybe we would have made it in enough time—" he cut off abruptly, still stung by the harsh reality of the memory. "Anyway, Donovan tried to make a joke out of it later, calling it my spidey senses. He was trying to make me feel better, I think. But I could tell he was freaked by the whole thing. By me. I asked him to never bring it up again, and so of course, that was the last I heard of it."

"Do you think he told Peter?" Matthew wondered aloud, and Thomas was shocked to realize he hadn't thought of the possibility until just now.

"I don't think so," he decided on, eventually. He couldn't be sure of why he thought this, but he didn't know why he seized and puked until he found the things he was supposed to find, either, especially when sometimes by the time he found it, it was too late.

"So if I told you something," Matthew's voice went anxiously quiet, like any decibel might be a potential bomb to detonate in his throat. "You wouldn't tell Peter?"

"Not if you didn't want me to," Thomas promised lightly. "It's not my job to tell other people's secrets."

Saruman had just tumbled to his gruesome death, spinning morbidly around in a watery circle.

"I'm in love with Peter," said Matthew, and for all Thomas's alleged psuedo-psychic spidey senses, he had in no way seen this coming.

He turned back to face Matthew's profile. "Like, forrealskies?"

Matthew nodded silently, the glassy pools beveling over his eyes startling Thomas almost completely from his well built up buzz.

"Oh Matty," he rolled his body over, hugging him round the middle, his face pressed upside down into his warm, heaving chest.

Matthew twisted himself up into a sitting position, eyes downturned toward his loosely fidgeting hands. In the dark, a sharp glint of gold flashed between his fingers.

"What's that?" Thomas asked.

Matthew paused his fingers spinning ministrations, sliding the thing into his palm and turning it up to show Thomas one of the gold leaf clips Peter had been wearing in his hair on Halloween. He blinked, a deeper layer of soil now visible to his mind's eye.

"Peter gave you that?"

Matthew shrugged. "I think it must have fallen out of his hair the night he slept over. I found it in my bed the next morning."

"Whoa," Thomas was certainly sobered up now. "Wait. What? You guys  _slept_ together?"

Matthew nodded, moving up to wipe one of his hoodie sleeves under his sniffly nose.

"Okay—let me clarify," Thomas's mind was sputtering. "Slept together like…just sleeping or?"

Matthew's face twitched in surprise. "Just—sleeping."

"Oh," Thomas scratched the back of his neck, contemplating. "Okay. Well."

"I know it's awful of me," Matthew's voice was hushed and hurried, like he was confessing a mortal sin. "I should be happy for him, because he's happy, but I'm not. I hate it. It's making me sick, making me crazy, and I don't know how to make it stop."

Thomas thought of Peter and Matthew, separately, as he knew them as individuals. Then he rifled through all his memories of the two of them together. And most importantly, the way Peter behaved when Matthew was away, when he spoke of him out of presence, just to Donovan and Thomas.

"Huh," he finally said, a small swirl of senses numbing the space between his shoulder blades in that familiarly tingly, anxious way. "Well, then."

Matthew studied Thomas's face, what must have been a very complex expression on it.

"What?"

"It's just," Thomas cocked his head to the side, a little dizzy with the possibility of it all. "Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall, you know?"

Instead of identifying the quote, like Matthew usually did, he remained silent, rubbing the leaf between his fingers, as if this was an intergral part of his thought process.

"You think he was trying to tell me something?"

The last thing Thomas wanted to do was say something that would end up hurting Matthew, or Peter, or the carefully cultivated balance between the four of them.

"I just think," he spoke slowly, carefully. "If Peter knew how you feel, he wouldn't be dating someone named fucking Kevin."

Matthew huffed out a frustrated breath, then shook his head. "That night, he told me he didn't want anything to come between the four of us. I didn't get what he was saying in the moment but I do now. It was a nicely worded friendzoning."

Thomas pursed his lips, probably too high to really be processing and discussing this right now.

"Peter says a lot of things," he kept his tone as even and neutral as he could manage in his current state. "Sometimes they're just words. You know?"

Matthew frowned, twirling the leaf between his fingers once more before pocketing it.

"I'm not gonna be the one to fuck up everything between all of us just because I—" he cut himself off, and Thomas waited for him to finish his thought, but he remained quiet after that. Then he said, a good twenty or so minutes later, "Maybe I should just leave."

"No way," Thomas replied sleepily, lack of rest the night before and the THC in his bloodstream mixing into the perfect coma-inducing cocktail. "You're crashing here tonight."

"I meant," said Matthew, his voice a touch more solid and stable than his. "Leave the group. Not hang out with you guys anymore."

Thomas jerked around at that. "What the fuck? Why?"

Matthew pulled his arms into his chest sheepishly. "I feel like enough of an outsider already. This is just making it worse. You and Donovan and Peter are my favorite people. I don't want to be the reason anything bad might happen between the three of you."

"An outsider," Thomas scoffed humorlessly at that. "Matty, join the club."

Matthew crinkled up his face in confusion. "Huh?"

"You have to have noticed it," Thomas drawled out, too many secrets shared between them to feign shyness now. "Peter and Donovan are on this whole other level, a special little tower just for the two of them. It's not like I've ever been invited up."

Matthew just squinted at him, like he was speaking a foreign language.

"It's like," Thomas sighed heavily, not entirely eager to go through a whole explanation. "The nickname thing. I came up with the idea, that we should have special nicknames that we came up with for each other, and only we would use them. I became Whitt, Peter was Dani, and Donovan was Van."

He waited for Matthew to mull that over in his head for a bit before he continued. "And they went along with it at first, and I thought I'd finally cemented my proper place in the group, you know? Like I was the idea guy, I was useful. And then I don't know, they just got bored with it, I guess. Teased me about it when I would try to remind them. And yet, after all this time, they still call me Whitt."

Matthew frowned deeply at this, sympathy and confusion writ so clearly across his face it could have been scribbled across his forehead in cursive.

"You think they're doing it to be mean?"

Thomas shrugged. "Not mean, exactly. And probably not even on purpose, which is the worst part. It's like they made a decision and just forgot to include me in it, to the point where they don't even realize it. They're Peter and Donovan. And I'm just Whitt."

"That sucks," said Matthew, and he spoke this so emphatically Thomas almost wanted to laugh. But the pure genuine article that was Matthew Lynch was no laughing matter.

"You should tell them how that makes you feel," he went on smartly, like he'd figured it all out. "I'm sure they didn't mean to hurt your feelings. They'd certainly understand if you just explained, don't you think?"

Thomas shrugged. "I just don't see the point in making it some big thing when it's just me being an insecure little bitch."

He thought Matthew would laugh at that, but his frown twisted into something like anger, righteous indignation.

"Peter was right, we shouldn't be keeping all these secrets from each other. It's making us all miserable. I'll tell the others about what I am, and you'll tell them what you can do, your sick vision thing, and then tell them about how they hurt your feelings with the nickname thing."

"Sick Vision," Thomas hummed, musing over the words thoughtfully. "That's a pretty snappy name for a pretty shitty superpower. I like it."

"Thomas," said Matthew, and that certainly got his attention. "I mean it."

"And what's the grand finale of this performance?" Thomas asked, a little too cruelly. "You tell Peter you're head over heels for him?"

Matthew curled into himself like a salted snail. "That's different. That's something I can work through on my own. There's literally no reason to even risk fucking everything up just because I was stupid enough to fall in love with the one person I wasn't supposed to."

They engaged in a half-hearted stare-down until Thomas blinked first, and he couldn't help but laugh, and Matthew giggled in that shy, uncertain way of his that slung Thomas's heart down into his stomach and back up again. They became suddenly painfully aware of their dry mouth munchies and raided the kitchen for snacks, hurrying themselves upstairs like there was some chance they could be caught by someone, and snuggled themselves into Thomas's roomy queen sized bed.

"Hey Thomas," Matthew said, both of them filled to the brim with salt and sugar and too heavy to do anything but give into the unrelenting tug of sleep.

"Yes Matthew?"

"This is the best Thanksgiving I've ever had."

Thomas snorted fondly. "I shudder to think of what your worst one was."

"You're the best friend I've ever had," Matthew told him, plain and clean and so painfully honest it made Thomas's head hurt.

"You're pretty up there, yourself," he smirked at him in the dark. "In my book."

"Let's just start calling Donovan Van again," was Matthew's final sleepy promise, before they slid in tandem into their own separate dreamlands. "See what happens."

Thomas groped blindly until his hand found Matthew's in the impenetrable dark between them and squeezed their fingers together.

"You should tell Peter how you feel," he croaked out, all the drama of a soldier's dying breath, and he meant every syllable of it. "See what happens."

"Deal," Matthew whispered, much too close to sleeping than waking to be held accountable for this. Thomas sighed, a satisfied and accomplished smile stayed etched on his face even as he was long under the throes of REM. He couldn't control the Sick Visions any more than he could control the outcomes of his interference in them, but catching the brief glimpse of Matthew Lynch, bandaged and damaged and peaceful in sleep, he decided for last time that he was glad for them, after all.

*** * ***

Jay didn't knock before he came in, and Peter shot up in bed, glaring wildly like bloody mouthed wolf interrupted from their meal.

Jay made no apologies, no sheepish thin lipped smiles like he usually did when he entered his nephew's space. The guilt on him was usually so palpable, Peter felt like he could smell it, acrid and sour, like toxic waste.

But not tonight, no, he strode into Peter's room like a police officer with a warrant, sitting down on the edge of Peter's bed without being invited to do so, and fixed his nephew with a determined sort of look, giving Peter the chance to retaliate before he continued on to whatever he was planning to do next.

"I could have been jerking off," Peter spoke crudely, the disrespect in his voice shocking almost even to his own ears.

"You didn't seem all that wrecked with desire saying goodbye to Kevin," his uncle smirked at him. "I thought I'd take my chances."

So that's what this was about.

Before Peter's father died, Uncle Jay had been one of his closest confidants. He was the first person in his family he came out to, and Uncle Jay had hugged him and told him he was brave and amazing and that he was so proud of him. His mother had been next, and she'd stared at him blankly for a few moments, like she didn't know who she was looking at, and then she'd hugged him, told him she loved him more than he could ever know, and that she just wanted him to be happy. Nervously, he'd asked if she would tell his father for him. She'd gone chalky and quiet again, before finally telling Peter she would do this, when she felt the time was right.

The right time never came, apparently, before his father died. It was the weirdest thing about it, as offensively trivial as that seemed, that his dad had died without knowing this vital piece of information about his son.

"If you came up here just to talk about how much you don't like my boyfriend," Peter spat, renewed with disdain and disinterest. "I can—"

"Actually," Jay tilted his head, looking at him in that mischievously knowing way he used to, back when he'd been his favorite uncle and not his father's replacement and they'd been as thick as thieves. "I came up here to talk about how much  _you_  don't like your boyfriend."

That stilled the torrential rushing of incensed blood through his veins. He shook his head, trying not to let the astuteness of this, the shock of being known so intimately by his ultimate betrayer, rattle him from the precarious hold he had on himself.

"I'm going to talk for a bit," Jay continued, Peter still struggling to come up with a sufficient comeback and surfacing empty-handed. "There are some things I've wanted to say to you for a very long time. Your mother didn't want to upset you, not after your father's death had ruined us all so completely, and so I respected her wishes. But I think it's time now, and your mother agrees, so here goes nothing."

Peter's fingers gripped into the sheets of his bed, biting down hard on nothing but his own jaw, steeling himself against some unseen pain he knew was coming.

"Your mother and I have loved each other for a long time," said Jay, a tired and sad smile twitching across his lips. "Long before your dad died."

This was a lie. Peter couldn't even bother to be upset by this. This was not true. He had no idea why Jay would even say something so absurdly unbelievable, but he kept talking, voice low and solemn, like this was the most important thing he was ever going to say.

"No one else in the family knew about it, of course. Just your mother, your father, and me." He flicked his eyes to Peter's for a moment, and then barreled on, not giving Peter the chance to react.

"We were best friends, the three of us, and we both loved her, you see. We never talked about it, but it was an obvious thing between us. When the two of them started dating, I thought nothing in the world could have ever made me happier. By the time she was pregnant with you, your father came to me in the middle of the night and told me a truth I'd never been so ashamed to hear, because I was his brother, and he was mine, and I should have already known. Your father loved your mother so much, more than I think he even loved me, but he did not love her in the way a husband loves a wife. He couldn't. He wasn't made that way."

Each word hit Peter like the slug of a bullet smacking into his chest, one after one after one. Each time he thought, I can't take one more second of this, and yet it only continued on, making mince meat of his already shredded flesh.

"He cried in my arms, he said he felt like a monster, not because of what he was, but because of what he was doing to your mother. She deserved someone that loved her the way she was meant to be loved. She already knew by that point, you see. She'd told him it didn't matter much to her, she was happy to be his friend and partner. And I finally confessed my own long kept secret, and he laughed and said, 'you want me to give her your number'?"

His uncle's eyes were glassing over, his throat squeezing his words tight with the pain of them. Somehow, he kept speaking.

"We were all happy again. It seemed like the perfect little fairy tale. We had each other and now we had you. Your mother and I worried about your father, of course. He had his demons, his dark moods, and we urged him to go out and find himself someone of his own. We thought that maybe that was the problem. He told us the only man he was interested in spending his life with was his son. He loved you so much, I thought he couldn't love anyone more than he loved us, but—well—of course, after you were born, there was no contest."

Peter's own eyes started to boil, threatening to spill burning tracks of hot tears down his cheeks. He held his breath, waiting.

"He always wanted to be the one to tell you, when you were old enough to understand. When you came to me, and told me what you did, I told him I thought maybe it was time for him to talk to you. I was so happy, thinking you and your father would have this wonderful thing in common you could understand in a way no one else could. He said he wanted to wait until you were older, still. I shrugged and left it at that. I was bound to your secrecy, after all." He shot his nephew a rueful smile.

"That was why he called me," Peter couldn't stop the tears from falling now, the ache in his chest so all-consuming it could not do anything but burst. "The day he died. He must have wanted to tell me…talk to me…" He sucked in a sharp breath, guilt and shame and self-hatred burning like acid in his throat. "I didn't answer. If I'd just—picked up the fucking phone—"

"No, no, no." His uncle cut him off with the reflex of a striking snake, grabbing his nephew by the shoulders and squeezing him hard. "He called me, too. We talked for hours. Before we got off the phone, he said, I think you should tell Peter. And I asked him if he was sure, and he told me he was, that it was time for you to know, and I should be the one to tell you. He was speaking a little vaguely, but he seemed happy, relaxed, I thought maybe he'd met someone. I should have known. What he was telling me in that moment. But it's no use dwelling on. There was no way any of us could have known, he made sure of that. He'd made up his mind. Nothing any one of us said could have stopped it."

Peter didn't believe that, he'd never believe it, but he couldn't hate his uncle for the the very same crime Peter himself was guilty of, and so he simply covered his face with hands and cried. At some point his uncle's arms were around him, and Peter didn't have the strength to push him away.

"Anyway," his uncle sniffed, both of them soggy and snotty messes, giving Peter's shoulders another hard squeeze. "My point is, the last thing your dad would want is you wasting your time on some boring boy named Kevin. Especially not if there's someone else," his uncle paused, his voice going soft and tentative. "Someone you could really give your heart to. Someone with curly blonde hair and deep green eyes you can't help but get lost in—I don't know—just spitballing, here."

Peter snorted, he couldn't help it. He wiped at his eyes and shook his head.

"That's not a thing."

"Neither is whatever you're doing now," his uncle teased, some old familiar flicker of the way they used to be trying to spark underneath the wet wood inside them both.

"At least it's realistic," Peter argued. "At least it doesn't hurt."

So maybe Kevin wasn't the boy of his dreams. That was the very point of the matter. The harsh reality he could not deny. Matthew was a dream. Kevin was real.

His uncle squeezed him one last time, and Peter was starting to grow a little fond of the feeling, before he stood up to leave. Pausing at the doorway, he looked back at his nephew with such a grieving desperation, Peter felt he had no choice than to perform whatever task he was about to ask of him.

"Life's so short, Peter," was all he said. "Don't throw it away."

*** * ***

It was a wonderful time to be walking. Whitt had insisted on giving him a ride home, but Matthew had to shake him off, assuring him there was nothing he needed more than to walk. It was his favorite time of day, the cool and damp pastel air of impossibly early morning, and the air he gulped into his lungs tasted so clean, calming. He ran some of the way, just to feel his heart pounding in his chest. And by the time he'd finally made it back home, the sky had turned a vibrant sunscreening gray and he was sweating. He shirked off his hooded sweatshirt, discarded it thoughtlessly on the porch before stepping as quietly as he could inside.

The house was dark and silent. He slid off his shoes, climbing the creaky stairs like a fumbling burglar, desperate not to make a noise. As he ascended, a soft rhythmic sound began to materialize in the air around him. He followed the sound, as if by trance, and was surprised to find it resounded the loudest behind the closed door of his own bedroom. He pressed his ear to the peeling white paint, the muffled sound of words being spoken too soft for Matthew to understand.

He opened the door, and there sat Adam on his bed, a wide, flat book in his hands, from which he was reading aloud.

"Real isn't how you are made, said the Skin Horse. It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real."

He wasn't alone. There was someone else tucked into Matthew's bed beside him, hidden under his thick blankets save for a head poking out, obstructed by the Achilles helmet from Matthew's Halloween costume, which they were crookedly wearing.

"Does it hurt? asked the Rabbit." Adam went on reading, undeterred by Matthew's presence. He wandered closer, sat himself down on the edge of his bed, and listened. "Sometimes, said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. When you are real you don't mind being hurt."

He sat quietly, let Adam finish reading his story, and when it was done, he smiled sleepily up at Matthew.

"Welcome back."

"Where's Ronan?" Matthew asked, anxious with the need to see him, be held and forgiven.

"He's resting," Adam answered, sliding himself out of Matthew's bed. "Last night took a lot out of him."

There was no accusation in this, no malice, because Adam was not that sort of person. He closed the book he'd been reading from and set it back down on Matthew's bookshelf.

"I'll let you two catch up," he said, before closing Matthew's door with a soft click.

Matthew turned back to the person who was sitting up in his bed now, impossibly pale little hands reaching up to pry the helmet off their head, a billow of cloud-like white blonde hair tumbling down around their shoulders.

"Opal!" Matthew could not stop himself from shouting her name. She smiled at him, tired, like she hadn't slept in awhile.

"Hi Matthew," she said, and her voice sounded different than he remembered. Deeper, softer. "I heard you missed me."

"We all did," Matthew told her, confident to speak for everyone who'd ever made Opal's acquaintance. "Are you back for good?"

"I suppose so." She looked out Matthew's window, blankets gathering around her waist, and the more of a look he got of her the more he noticed a flurry of a million little differences. She was still Opal, of course, but she had changed, somehow.

"You're older," he realized, blinking with wide-eyed fascination at the new width of her shoulders, the sharpening of her once rounded chin. She was not as old as Matthew, not nearly, but she was miles away from the tiny little girl she'd been before. She looked like maybe she could be in the tail end of middle school, if she was a normal girl and not a magical dream creature who did such things.

"Yeah," the casual confidence in her new, older voice, surprised him. "When Ronan found me, it was in a much different place than he'd left me. I guess I can do that now."

"Are you glad to be back?" Matthew asked. His heart was pounding, like so much in the world depended on the answer to this question.

"I don't know yet," she mused, a curious flicker lighting up her tired eyes. "Does it ever stop hurting?" she asked Matthew. "Being real."

Matthew moved to sidle up next to her in his bed. She let her head fall to his shoulder automatically, like this was what was expected of her.

"I don't know yet," Matthew echoed her answer. "It hasn't for me." He thought of everything that was so awful and scary about the world, the way his fist had crunched through the bones in Andrew Jensen's nose, the unbearable pain of watching the person you wanted to kiss be kissing someone else, the comfy pillowtop mattress he'd laid in with his best friend, he thought of this house, this home he lived in with his family, being helped up off the floor by someone who wanted to protect him, the rush of someone's fingers threaded snugly between his own. "But it's worth it, I think, to stay."

Abruptly, Opal threw back his covers and trotted noisily down the stairs, informing Adam loudly that she wanted to help him with breakfast. Matthew got up too, as if being pulled by a string, and found his way to his brother's bedroom. The door was cracked open, like it had been expecting a visitor. Matthew slid into bed beside his sleeping brother, who stirred until he was blinking in the sight of him, and tears filled Matthew's eyes for some reason. There was so much to cry about, Matthew couldn't be sure which one it was at the moment.

"I'm sorry," he said, and Ronan took him into his arms, silent and constant in his forgiveness. Matthew was too lucky, to have all these people in his life, and the reality of it overwhelmed him, as most real things did, and he held tightly to his brother like he might float away if he didn't. He wasn't sure if he deserved all this, these people, this love. But from now on, he promised them all silently, as he drifted off to a restless sleep in his brother's arms, he was going to be nothing but grateful.

*** * ***

Peter was certain that he was dying. There was no other explanation for what was currently happening to his body. His heart pounded so painfully in his chest, at much too a fast a rate for a human being to live through, this was undoubtedly a heart attack. Or maybe a stroke, he mused, his brain going sharply numb and his limbs seeming to disconnect from it completely. He was going to fall forward at any moment, his head smacking hard against the horn of his steering wheel, blaring in one endless screech as his body decomposed in front of the tree he'd veered off the road and smashed into.

That seemed infinitely preferable than his actual destination, and when he did finally arrive at the Lynch farm house, he was sad for the Peter who hadn't been able to die with dignity on the side of the road. His body was stuck in a perpetual loop of nerve-frying anticipation. Like he'd been strapped into a rollercoaster he didn't want to be on, but had to ride through to its completion, and the operator kept hovering over the blast-off button, leaving Peter guessing as to when his agony would end.

The sound of the screen door creaking open and slamming shut did the exact opposite of assuaging Peter's full-body shut down. He thought of a song he'd heard once, some raspy indie girl singer lamenting about the inaccuracy of the idea of a crush feeling like the soft fluttering of wings,  _butterflies have knives, cutting up my insides_.

He'd texted Matthew very early Sunday morning, because he figured Matthew would have been asleep and not gotten the text until hours later, too late to accept his offer of going somewhere for breakfast, and Peter would have been able to say okay universe, I tried, that's the end of that now. But Matthew had replied almost immediately, happily unaware of Peter's true intentions, and Peter played nothing but warbly voiced guitar men mumbling their sorrows too close into a microphone, all the way to his house. Emotional Preparation.

The sky was cloudy and ominous as Matthew Lynch slid into his passenger seat, as if he'd come down from his day job in the sky itself to grace Peter with a few hours of his time. He smiled sleepily at him and Peter's face did something in return, though he would never know what exactly that thing was, since his body and brain were currently not on speaking terms.

They drove in an achingly peaceful silence, Matthew leaned into the closed window, the spirals of his blonde hair obscuring his face from view. Peter could imagine it so clearly, another universe, where everything was the same, but they were holding hands as the car sped smoothly down the empty Henrietta highways and backroads, not two separate people, but one put together thing that breathed in tandem. Secure and content in their commitment to each other, happy and together.

Suddenly the volume of the music spiked, and Peter's eyes flashed, catching the tips of Matthew's fingers on the knob before he sank back into his seat.

"I love this song," he said.  _No Shade in the Shadow of The Cross_. Peter had done something unforgivable in a past life and this scorching hot misery was his due punishment.

He drove so long the playlist had ended and started itself over and finally Matthew asked, "Where are we going?"

They were outside town, somewhere inbetween the next one, and Peter pulled into the shoulder of the road. He turned off the car, the music cutting off in one sharp, damning instant, as if the singer's throat had been slit. Peter put his hands on the wheel, gripping around it with clenched fists, desperately trying to quiet the pounding of his heart, lodged deep in his throat. He would have surely vomited if there'd been enough room for the bile simmering underneath it to get through.

They sat there, in the strangely surreal silence of it, the last moments of  _maybe, if, but, somehow_ , that Peter didn't know if he was strong enough to let go of.

"Are you okay?" Matthew's voice was timid, like he was approaching a wounded animal that might startle and hurt itself further if he moved too quickly.

Peter shook his head, slowly, the pressure in his chest and throat trembling like his heart and lungs were two tectonic plates shifting together in just the right way to allow for mass destruction to follow.

He had to start talking, and he had to do it now, so he began with the easiest of all he had to say.

"I broke up with Kevin."

"Oh." Matthew's voice punctured through the thick air between them like a needle through a balloon. Peter felt the pop in his ears. "Why?"

Peter almost laughed, of course that would be Matthew's next question. Bushwhacking through Peter's passive defenses, as always.

Part of the truth, he could manage. "It's hard to talk about."

Every breath that heaved from his chest was more excruciating than the next. His grip slackened on the steering wheel in front of him, fingers gone numb and shaking uncontrollably. He pressed one feeble hand to his chest, trying to slow it all down, to center himself. The punch of his raging heart bruised through his skin, he was certain if his hand was not pushing it down it would break through, gushing gristled muscle and blood down the front of his shirt. Matthew was dutifully silent in the seat next to him, waiting for Peter to explain himself, but Peter was two shaky breaths away from losing consciousness completely, so he shoved open the door of his car and wrenched himself out of it. He stumbled forward in mindless motion, into the middle of the street, gulping down the fresh air like that might do something, before losing his footing and twisting his ankle around itself unnaturally, dropping to the ground beneath him like an overexcited governess from the 1800s.

He heard the door open and loud footsteps jogging toward him. He sat with his head in his hands, trying trying trying to breathe, trying to rewind the tears that fallen on impact back into his eyes.

"Peter," Matthew dropped down clumsily beside him, out of breath and buzzing with worry. "What's wrong?"

Peter kept his face covered, breathing roughly through his hands, wishing he had it in him just to rip the rest of this stupid bandaid off so he could bleed out and be done with it.

He pulled his hands down, locking them between his knees, so they couldn't do anything but stay smashed there. He swallowed around the heart sized lump in his throat, pushing the trapped air out of his lungs, and just as he began to think about opening his mouth he felt the worn fabric of Matthew's hoodie sleeve pressed to his face, scraping across his eyes and under his nose, an attempt to clean the sticky wet mess that dislodged Peter's heart from his throat to drop it down into the pit of his stomach. When Matthew was finished wiping him down, he moved to wrap his arms around him and squeeze.

"I never liked Kevin," he said. Peter could not stop the firecracker of laughter that escaped him.

"Me neither." His voice came out like there was a hand around his throat.

Matthew eyed him curiously, his mouth twisting into that contemplative pout he did when he was trying to figure something out. He reached out suddenly, one finger tracing the healed up gash of his own making, now a raised crook of a scar that swept through his eyebrow and crested around the curve of his cheek. Glutton for punishment that he was, Peter closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, warm ribbons of liquid warmth unspooling themselves in his stomach.

Ironically calmed, Peter finally found his voice. "All that stuff I said, you know, about not wanting anything to mess up our friendship." He sniffed around the words. "I really meant it, you know."

Matthew's finger stilled on his rippled skin. He looked suddenly frightened, like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't have been. He dropped his hand and looked away from Peter.

"I know."

"I thought I could handle it." The words wouldn't stop coming now, dripping out of his mouth like the cold specks of rain that had started speckling the asphalt around them. "I thought I could just be your friend, and it would all be okay, but it's not. It's not okay. And I can't be your friend, Matthew, I just can't. And I know that makes me the worst kind of person, so it's the very least I can do to be fucking honest about it." He shuddered in a shaky breath, rain dripping down on them at an increasingly uncomfortable speed.

"I'm sorry," he said. He didn't know what else to say.

"I—understand," Matthew said, and he'd never heard his voice so tightly wrenched. He wanted to look at him but he was much too much of a coward for that. "I'm sorry, too."

That lifted Peter's too heavy head, and he looked up to the startling picture of Matthew Lynch, blonde curls sagging as the rain soaked them, tears brimming over the lids of his dark green eyes.

"This hurts really bad," he breathed out, like it was shock to his system, like he didn't quite know what was happening to him.

Whatever mangled sludge was left of Peter's heart melted into the acid of his stomach.

"Fuck," he cursed sharply, reaching for Matthew's hands, shaking and ice cold from the rain pouring down around them. "I'm so sorry, Matthew. I never—"

"I won't bother you about it," Matthew blurted out, his voice wrung out and desperate, shocking Peter into silence. "I know I acted weird around Kevin but it's just because I didn't realize how jealous I was. But now that I understand it, I can just deal with it. I don't care who you're with, Peter, if they make you happy then I'll always be nice to them. I promise I will. We can still be friends. I won't hug you, I won't even sit close to you if you don't want me to anymore. Please, Peter. I'd rather be friends with you than be nothing."

Peter stared, open mouthed, into the dense sheet of rain curtaining Matthew's face from his vision. He knew Matthew was speaking English words, he was just having a spot of trouble quite understanding what all of them strung together into those precise sentences was supposed to mean.

"Matthew," he practically had to shout his name over the unforgiving hiss of the rain. His brain tumbling around in his skull like metal buttons in a dryer. Now he understood the butterflies concept, his insides drying up like the sun of the first spring morning was rising in his chest, wildlife fluttering to life and buzzing pleasantly around his stomach.

"When I said I couldn't be your friend, I meant—" He licked his rain-soaked lips, his body inclining toward Matthew's like there was a magnet in his chest opposite to the one in Peter's. He stopped, their faces a hair's breadth apart, the slightest movement would end everything.

Peter's eyelids fluttered, heavy in the rain, the short puffs of Matthew's breath stinging the prickled skin of his lips until he couldn't take it anymore.

"Kiss me," said Peter, a submission, an entreaty.

He closed his eyes, afraid of what rejection would look like up so close, and then Matthew Lynch's lips were on his, and Peter could not help but allow himself to feel the sweet redemption of his own intelligence, because he'd been right, after all. Even sitting in the middle of street, icy rain drenching him from head to toe, skin so numb he was barely able to feel the texture of Matthew's sopping wet hair in his hands, the pull of Matthew's fingers in his, he knew that this was what kissing was supposed to feel like. This was what drove people insane, this was why Shakespeare characters were always killing themselves, this was why mouths had been invented in the first place.

A car horn blared in their ears and their hold on each other tensed, blinking wildly in the blinding headlights of a car that had skidded to an impatient stop in front of them, and they stumbled out of the street and crawled into the back of Peter's car, and then Matthew's lips were on his again. He tasted like fruit-flavored toothpaste and suddenly Peter wanted to squeeze an entire bottle of it down his throat. Matthew's tongue slid into his mouth in a way that Peter didn't know how was physically possible for him to feel this sensation much harder between his legs than inside his mouth, but it was the most incredible thing that had ever happened to him, so he didn't really care all that much. Matthew was gripping him so tightly, fingers clawed into the front of his soaked shirt, like Peter would disappear out from under him if he did not do this. Peter's back was shoved up against the door handle, his neck bent at the most awkwardly painful angle possible, but he didn't care. He kept his hands around Matthew's neck, pulling him closer, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth and holding it there before releasing it with a filthy suck of a sound and the sound Matthew made in response to this was much, much worse and Peter's insides blazed like a fire through dry grass, and when Matthew's lips slid from his lips to his jaw, settling at the pulse of his throat, the warmth of it shocked through Peter like a hot spike of lightning and his hands moved to Matthew's shoulders, pushing him backward.

"Sorry," Matthew rasped immediately, drawing himself further back, eyes wide and alarmed, like he'd been ruler-rapped across the knuckles.

"No, no," Peter moved toward him, sealing their wet bodies together once more, burying his face into the crook of Matthew's neck. He wanted nothing more than to be stripped of his clothes right here in the backseat of his car, virginal and unprepared in every possible way, taken regardless by Matthew Lynch like a scene out of a bad fanfiction. "I just—feel like my head's going to explode."

He ran his hands down the length of Matthew's arms and back up again, both of them shivering like two wet rats taking refuge in a sewer. He swallowed, mind spinning back down to Earth, and climbed into the front of his car, reaching back to tug Matthew up with him. They sat with their hands pressed to the vents as he blasted the heater, the warmers in the seats underneath them only highlighting the discomfort of their soaking wet clothes, sticking to their skin and now the uncomfortably hot seats as well.

They didn't speak on the way to Peter's house, the aching silence returned once more, this time differing only in the fact that Peter drove them through the unrelenting rain one-handed, the other one stretched across the console, fingers twined inbetween Matthew's as held them with both hands, rubbing them together to keep them warm.

He undressed himself privately, returning to his bedroom in a fresh t-shirt and pair of sweatpants, holding out the largest and fluffiest towel he could find to Matthew, who began to undress himself presently, which Peter was unfairly glad for.

Peeling himself out of the wet jeans that had glued themselves to his skin proving to be more than a one man task, Peter laughed as he held him steady by the shoulders, and Matthew yanked them the rest of the way off. The heavy wet fabric slapped loudly against the wood floor and Peter bent to retrieve them.

"I'll put these in the dryer," he told Matthew, then, somewhat shyly. "You can get in the bed, if you want."

He returned to see that Matthew had accepted this proposal, squeezing the rest of the water out of his hair as he sat in Peter's bed, blankets pulled up to his waist.

Peter gingerly placed himself in bed beside him, holding out his hand and uncurling his fingers, revealing the small metal gold leaf clip sitting in his palm.

"This was in your pocket," he said.

Matthew's cheeks flushed, and Peter wanted so very badly to kiss him again, and to never stop kissing him, drop out of school to become a professional Matthew Lynch kisser.

"You left it at my house," said Matthew with a small shrug. "I held onto it."

"I thought I'd lost it," Peter mused, feeling suddenly shy himself, like this was so much bigger than his brain could ever truly comprehend.

"Oh," Matthew said, the cold slice of disappointment in his voice as clear as the blush on his face. "Do you want it back?"

"No." Peter slid himself underneath his blankets, turning in bed to face the boy beside him, and pressed the leaf into his bare chest, feeling the beat of his heart underneath it, like it would slide through his skin and plant itself inside him if he pressed hard enough. "It's yours."

 

 

**EPILOGUE**

 

Adam knew a fuck you invitation when he saw one. He'd made as many allies as enemies throughout the course of his academic career and was no stranger to the bitingly polite offers to luncheons, to dinner parties, to weddings.

He snorted softly to himself, still in a little bit of disbelief that being "cordially invited" to "Tad & Sebastian's Big Fat Greek Wedding" was something that was actually happening in real life.

"They've hardly been together a year," he trilled, flicking the card toward his husband so he could get a look at it.

"I guess when you know, you know," Ronan shrugged, taking an indifferent sip of his coffee. Adam made a disgruntled face at him.

"No use pouting about it now," his husband teased viciously. "You had your chance."

"Fuck you," Adam chuckled, sliding back down into bed beside him, sidling up for a lazy late morning cuddle.

"Should we go?"

Ronan raised one eyebrow. Adam shrugged. "Free trip to Greece."

"Jesus," Ronan scoffed. "Sure you wanna waste your plus one on me?"

"Plus two," Adam corrected. "We could take Opal."

Ronan guffawed at that, setting down his coffee and rolling over to fuck some much needed sense into his husband. And yet, a few short weeks later, the three of them were squashed together in a cramped airplane, Ronan threatening to knock Opal out with a sedative if she didn't stop pressing every button she could find and rifling through the flight menus and brochures incessantly, like she was unearthing buried treasure.

The only thing more shocking than the fact that they'd all made it off the 15 hour flight in one piece was the fact that as they waited outside for a taxi to take them to their hotel, they were suddenly being waved at by none other than Matthew Lynch, his little brother-in-law. He bounded up to them, suitcase in tow, beaming with uncontainable excitement.

"Hey guys!"

"Matthew," Adam blinked at him. "What are you doing here?"

"For the wedding!" He chirped, bumping fists with Ronan, who was not in the least bit surprised to see his little brother in the same foreign country he'd just arrived in for the apparently very same reason.

"I didn't know you were close with…" Words failed Adam. Tad? Sebastian? Neither made any more sense than the other.

"Lizzie invited me," Matthew explained, squinting in the summer sun. "She's Sebastian's sister. She's one of my best friends."

"Oh," Adam replied, not knowing what else to say to that. "Well, alright. Guess we'll see you there."

"Should we all ride to the hotel together?" he asked Ronan, looking swiftly behind him and then back around. "Do you think we'll all fit?"

"Fuck no," Ronan grunted, grumpy from the plane ride and itchy to be as far away from the busy airport as possible. "Get your own taxi, shithead."

"Whatever," Matthew clucked, spinning back around to run back the way he'd come, stopping in front of someone and wrapping his arms tightly around them, saying something closely into their ear.

"Who's that?" Adam cupped his hand over his eyes, trying to get a better look at the guy Matthew was clinging to like his life depended on it.

"The same boyfriend as always, I'm assuming," said Ronan, completely disinterested in this topic. Adam's heart skidded in his chest.

"Boyfriend?"

Ronan looked back at him, eyebrows creased together. "Yeah?"

"I didn't," Adam spoke slowly, mind whizzing as they piled themselves into a taxi. "I didn't know Matthew was seeing anyone."

"I told you about it," Ronan rolled his eyes, like Adam was the most annoying person on the planet. "Like, forever ago."

"You most certainly did not," Adam argued, exhausted with his husband's notoriously faulty memory. "Obviously I would have remembered something like that."

"I definitely did," Ronan insisted, glaring daggers at Opal before she was about to do something he didn't want her to be doing. "But you're welcome for the reminder."

Adam scoffed and rolled his eyes, too tired to continue this. He'd ask Matthew about it later, he supposed.

The wedding itself was shockingly lovely. It was still weird, the whole Tad Carruthers and Sebastian Hawthorne thing, but Adam was slowly accepting this was a world in which he had absolutely no knowledge of, from the impossibly delicate way Sebastian and Tad were holding onto each other after the ceremony, to the hilariously sweet Best Woman speech Sebastian's sister gave, insisting to everyone that she'd predicted this holy matrimony long before it had ever began, shouting out Matthew Lynch in the process, who was apparently her witness in this fact, and Matthew laughed and gave her a big thumbs up. He watched, stunned at the reality of this world he'd been thrust into, as Matthew turned to the boy sitting beside him and whispered something into his ear that made him laugh. And suddenly, recognition hit Adam like a bullet to the chest.

He leaned into Ronan, tugging him by the tie around his neck to bring their heads together. "Is that Peter Mirchandani?"

"Yeah," Ronan answered, not even bothering to look at who Adam was referring to.

"Your brother," Adam's mind was beginning to melt. "Is dating Peter Mirchandani?"

"Did you hit your fucking head at some point?" Ronan growled quietly back at him. "I  _told you_  about this. Matthew got in that fight at school, knocked Peter into some lockers, tale as old as time."

Adam remembered the story Ronan had told him about Matthew's bloody brawl in the middle of the Aglionby halls, years after the fact, and he had most definitely left out the part of the story that ended with Matthew and Peter being together. He thought of the drawing he'd given Matthew all those years ago, before he'd left for his first year of undergrad, the one Peter had drawn of him. When he finally got the chance to squirrel Matthew away for a moment of privacy, he asked him when he and Peter had starting dating.

"Junior year," Matthew answered with a fond smile, as if recalling the pleasing memory.

"Oh," Adam nodded with relief, feeling vindicated, already planning to lord this victory over his exaggerating husband. "So this is a new thing."

Matthew scrunched up his nose in confusion, then said, "Of high school, Adam."

"What?" Adam searched his brain frantically, trying to remember a time anyone had ever mentioned this to him in the past five years and how he had somehow deleted Peter out years worth of memories.

"Was he at our wedding?" Adam was panicked now, concerned he was losing his memory from very early onset dementia.

"Of course not," Matthew scoffed. "Why would I bring him to your wedding? He used to have a crush on you. That's, like, so awkward."

Adam shook his head, too old to spend too much time thinking about this. The world was a strange place.

Opal abruptly disentangled herself from where she'd been contentedly leaning into his side, springing up with all the truck-lifting energy one seventeen year old girl could muster, twirling her way into the middle of the reception's dance floor because  _Dancing Queen_  by ABBA had begun to blast through the overhead speakers.

"Is that one yours?" An old woman had sat herself down next to Ronan, pointing her ornately carved wooden cane toward where Opal was spinning around in haphazard circles on the dance floor, shouting the lyrics louder than the music itself.

"Unfortunately," Ronan sighed, and the woman laughed in delight. Old women were always charmed by Ronan, which brought him more discomfort than anything else the world could come up with to torture him. Adam smirked, pleased at what he felt like was a well deserved lifelong punishment.

"What a strange beauty," she remarked of Opal's waist length white blonde hair that had been dried upside down and crimped to electric-shock perfection. Adam waited for the inevitable question about why she was wearing knee-high Wellington boots with a gauzy cocktail dress, but instead she nudged Ronan with her shoulder and made a comment about boys and beating them off with a stick. Ronan grunted something in return as Adam watched Opal and Lizzie, Sebastian's sister, twirl each other around in endless circles, laughing maniacally like power-drunk witches spinning around a bubbling cauldron.

 _Boys_ , he thought bemusedly, weren't going to be an issue.

But that was a problem for another day.


End file.
